UI 101
Page 6
“Sure! I don’t listen to punk, though, really. But college is all about expanding horizons and other such nonsense, right?”
“Right!” exclaimed Paul, standing up to let Rae have his desk chair. “I’m going to get another beer. Do you ladies need another drink?”
Drink number two was still a third full. “No, thanks. I’m good for now, but I’ll have another maybe in a little bit.”
“Yes, please!” said Rae, holding her long-empty cup out behind her as she clicked away on a rather eclectic mix of artists, including Dave Matthews, Mumford and Sons, Ed Sheeran, and Lorde. “My rum is on Brad’s bed.”
Paul came back with the drinks and stood behind me, looking at Rae’s selections. “Dave Matthews Band?” he inquired.
“Trust me,” said Rae emphatically. “My mom used to listen to him all the time when I was a kid. He’s the reason I learned to play guitar.” She stood up and climbed over the window seat around me to the futon.
The girl was a machine! She was already on, like, drink number four and she hadn’t stumbled or spilled a drop in that gymnastic act of hers. My cup was still a quarter full.
“Stupid…” I mumbled.
“What, Ryn?” asked Paul.
“Nothing,” I answered, draining my glass. “Ready for another one, that’s all.”
“I’ll get you—”
“Oh. My. God. No way. Paul, is this yours?”
Rae had set her glass down on the floor next to the futon, and I guessed underneath it had been a guitar, because she had pulled it out and was holding it reverently in her hands.
“Yeah,” Paul said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “I like to play. I couldn’t bring my big amp, though. I don’t know where it’d fit in here. So all I have is my little one under my desk.
“Paul,” she breathed, “could I…”
It seemed that to play another person’s guitar was, to her, to hold the equivalent of their firstborn child in her hands.
“Be my guest,” offered Paul graciously, and he and I settled on the floor at the foot of the futon.
Brad plopped down on the couch next to Rae. “I didn’t know you played,” he gushed. “Beautiful and talented!”
He dropped an arm around her as she fine-tuned Paul’s blue electric guitar. I turned to Paul and rolled my eyes as if to say, is his cheesy ass for real?
Paul snickered and rolled his eyes back at me, so I could only guess that he was. I won’t pretend to understand the workings of a flirtatious teenage male mind. Especially one underneath an Abercrombie baseball hat.
One of the Dave Matthews songs Rae had downloaded came up on Paul’s playlist, and she strummed along, singing with it. Now, honestly, I’ve heard a lot of good guitarists in my day, including older artists like Jimmi Hendrix and new guys like Jack White. But this Dave guy, I cannot possibly deny that the man is a guitar genius in his own right. He’s got talent. But I’d rather catch a free Rae Formosus concert in my dormitory any day.
“Do you write any of your own stuff?” I asked as the song finished, and Paul turned down the music so the eight people that were left in the room could hear her.
Rae took a sip of her drink and nodded. “Not really anything serious, though. Just stuff for fun.”
“Come on,” said Brad, sliding, if possible, even closer to her on the futon. “I bet it’s totally awesome!”
Paul and I exchanged glances.
“Totally tubular, man,” I drawled, making a big production of shimmying closer to him on the carpet.
He snickered, faking a yawn and a stretch and placing his arm behind me.
“Come on, Rae,” Paul urged, after we got over our fits of laughter at Brad’s expense, not that he was paying attention to anyone other than Rae, anyway. “Sing us a funny one!”
Rae looked tempted, but not swayed.
“Everyone do a shot with me, and I will,” she bargained.
So we did. One of the guys from down the hall passed around his economy-size bottle of Five O’Clock and another resourceful girl passed around paper Dixie cups she’d found in the bathroom. I looked at my third drink—still nearly full—and the clock. We’d been here for three hours. One shot wouldn’t kill me, I decided. I would just keep this drink as my last till the end of the night, and I’d still feel pretty good without any bad consequences tomorrow morning.
“To finally going to college!” said Rae, raising her Dixie cup high.
“To welcome week!” added the guy with the gallon of vodka.
“To classes not starting for three whole days!” roared Paul.
“To roommates and floormates that are cool as hell!” I cried.
“Hear, hear!” everyone cheered, draining the cups and tossing them in the bathroom trash can that Paul and Brad’s suitemate—I think his name was Packson—had circulated around the room. Rae picked up Paul’s guitar and started to play amidst the four or so conversations that were going on around the room, but pretty soon, everyone was listening to her.
“This is a little song I wrote,” Rae began, perching herself on the edge of the couch. Brad reached a hand behind her and rested it on her bare back where her shirt had ridden up. “About a girl from my hometown named Becky Jackson.
* * *
“Oh, you all know Becky Jackson,
And you know she was a good friend of mine.
Now, if she’s such a good friend,
Why’s she hitting on my man all the time?
* * *
I went to a party with Becky Jackson,
And we got drunk on keg beer.
And before I knew it, we were talking.
And the truth came out in the clear.
* * *
Bitch, fuck you, Becky Jackson,
You’re a dirty, lying cheat.
Whore, fuck you, Becky Jackson,
I hope you die in the street.
You can keep the bastard for all I care.
He don’t mean shit to me.
Oh, go to hell, Becky Jackson,
You ain’t no friend to me.
* * *
Well, Becky Jackson, she told me
She was sleeping with my boy,
And Becky Jackson she told me
He likes to do crazy stuff with toys.
* * *
Oh, I know we all get bored
In our small town, Becky Jackson,
But it’s disgusting, Becky,
You did it under the bleachers in the gym.
* * *
Bitch, fuck you, Becky Jackson,
You’re a dirty, lying cheat.
Whore, fuck you, Becky Jackson,
I hope you die in the street.
You can keep the bastard for all I care.
He don’t mean shit to me.
Oh, go to hell, Becky Jackson,
You ain’t no friend to me.
* * *
Oh, Becky Jackson, why’d you lie?
You told me you thought he was dumb.
Why’d you go behind my back, Becky Jackson?
Why did you hide and run?
* * *
Well, now guess what, Becky Jackson?
It’s two months later, and did you know?
He’s been cheating on you now,
And as a best friend, I told you so.
* * *
Bitch, fuck you, Becky Jackson,
You’re a dirty, lying cheat.
Whore, fuck you, Becky Jackson,
I hope you die in the street.
You can keep the bastard for all I care.
He don’t mean shit to me,
Oh, go to hell, Becky Jackson,
You ain’t no friend to me.
* * *
Oh, you can keep the bastard for all I care
Because he wasn’t good to me anyway.
You’re a whore and you know it.
You’ve slept with seven people in the last year,
And you all know who I’m talking about.
Yeah
, she used to be my best friend, Becky Jackson!”
* * *
Oh. My. God. I have never laughed so hard in my life, and everyone started singing the chorus with her toward the middle because it was so catchy. I bet the other people on the floor are all wondering why we were all screaming “bitch” and “whore.” I seriously have the coolest roommate ever.
6
Mitzy
That Rae girl was really nice! She didn’t seem to be too fond of her name, but I thought it was beautiful. Auraelia—it sounded like a star. She stopped by with her roommate—I think her name was Ryn—on her way back downstairs. Ryn seemed really nice, too. I wondered if she could teach me how to make my own clothes like that? Her style was just amazing!
Ryn and Rae seemed to be getting along rather well. No, make that spectacularly. I hoped my roommate and I got along like that. And speaking of my roommate, where was she? I knew her name was LaTasha because I could see it labeled on half the things in our room. There was even a silver picture frame that had her name engraved on it, as well as about ten other photos on her side of the shelving unit. Their frames weren’t embossed, though.
But that was another interesting thing I’d noticed about my mysterious and elusive roommate. All the photos she had were of herself. Well, okay, there was one photo that had her and her mama in it, but all the others were just portraits of her. There was her sitting down, her lounging at the beach, her lying in a bed of flowers—even an eight-by-ten headshot of just her. Where were all the pictures of her family? Of her friends? What about a picture of her boyfriend? Maybe they were tacked up over her bunk? But I wasn’t going to look. It was none of my business.
I hoped Rae and Ryn would stop by. It would be nice to hang out with some new people tonight. I could just walk down to their room and check. I didn’t have to leave it to them to initiate the friendship.
I pulled on the big fluffy gorilla slippers my sisters had gotten me last Christmas, walked down the hall to where I’d seen Rae stop off earlier, and knocked. No answer.
I checked my watch and yawned. It was nearly eleven, and with all the traveling and unpacking I had done, I was completely tuckered out. Maybe a first night on my own to recuperate wouldn’t be so bad. A shower would be wonderful. I still felt gross from moving all those boxes. I could make friends tomorrow.
I padded back down the hall to my room. Still empty. Oh well. At least this way no one would be waiting for the shower or toilet. I grabbed my shower caddy and bathrobe from my side of the closet and turned on the water, letting it heat up as I undressed before I stepped in. My suitemate, the resident mentor for our floor, was away at a meeting, but I had introduced myself earlier, and Laura had let me know how she had changed the showerhead in our bathroom. My shower was blissful.
Twenty minutes later, I had wrapped my hair in a towel, donned my bathrobe, and stepped over to my desk to grab the hairbrush I had left there. As I flipped my head upright to begin working out the snarls, the door burst open.
My roommate had finally returned, but not just by herself. She had brought her own ten-person entourage, and I was standing there in a ratty, old, blue terrycloth bathrobe. Golly, what a great first impression.
“Um, hi!” was all I managed before the majority of the crowd burst out laughing. So I laughed with them. “Sorry, y’all,” I apologized, grabbing my clothes and making a mad dash for the still steamy bathroom. “I’ll be out in just a sec.”
One of the boys gave me a smile. “No problem,” he said. “Sorry to barge in like this.”
I grinned back at him and shut the door. Tossing on a pair of white cotton shorts and a pink T-shirt with Tennessee emblazoned across the front, I cringed. First impressions could make or break you, and my bathrobe was not something I had wanted included in mine. I rubbed some moisturizer on my face and pinned my sopping hair up with a clip. Giving myself a once-over in the mirror, I shrugged.
Taking a deep breath and slapping a smile on my face, I opened the door to rejoin the party. My roommate was the center of attention in the middle of the throng and was animatedly telling a story that, judging by everyone’s uproarious laughter, was the funniest thing they had ever heard. I waited a few minutes until she finally paused, leaving a long enough gap for me to interject.
“Sorry about that, y’all,” I apologized again, trying unsuccessfully to meet my roommate’s eyes among the group. “If I’d have known there were guests coming over, I would have made sure to be decent when they arrived,” I hinted in what I hoped was a subtle fashion. The rules of Southern Hospitality were setting off alarms in my head at the number of violations that were happening. “Has LaTasha offered y’all anything to drink?” I looked around the room, seeing everyone’s hands empty. “I think I’ve got Coke, if y’all would like some.”
I went to the closet and got out a 12-pack that Aunty Jo had given me, and passed a can to each person who wanted one. The majority of people said things like “thank you” or “thanks for having us” and went right back to their conversations, but my roommate looked as though I had slapped her.
Oops. That could have gone better.
I took a deep breath and decided to try and start over. I wanted to introduce myself to LaTasha and apologize properly, but now she was sitting on her bed, half-hidden by another person. I guessed it would have to wait. I looked around the room again for a way to engage myself, and one particular boy caught my eye.
I really liked his hair. It was shorter, no more than two inches long, but it had been sectioned off into spunky little twists all around his head. It appeared as though he had purposely mussed it up and gelled it into intricately tousled little spikes. It set off his neat, rimless glasses really nicely, the whole “unkempt in a kempt way” kind of style. And his skin—wow. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was dark, like freshly turned up earth in the garden back at home. The red button-down shirt and khaki cargo shorts he was wearing really fit well with his entire look.
I tore my eyes away before he or anyone else could notice how rudely I was staring. The only empty space for me to sit down was next to the boy who had smiled at me—the one I had just been ogling. I could either sit next to him, a complete stranger, or climb into my top bunk.
“Mind if I sit here?” I asked.
“’Course not. It’s your room. I’m Jamaal,” he said sliding over to make room and offering me his hand to shake.
I latched on to it like a drowning person to a life preserver. “Nice to meet you, Jamaal,” I said. “I’m Mitzy, Mitzy Callaway.” He quirked an eyebrow and I added hastily, “No relation to the golf people.”
Jamaal laughed appreciatively. “Pleasure, Mitzy. Hey, everyone, this is Mitzy. She owns half the room we’re invading.”
Some people waved, while others came over and introduced themselves. My roommate wasn’t one of them. I glanced over to where she was still sitting on her bed, hoping I could maybe catch her eye and start up an introduction, but she was having a rather heated conversation with another one of our male guests. Besides, right then I was shaking the hand of Rod—short for Roderick, he told me.
“So you’re from Tennessee, huh?” Rod asked, eyeing my shirt as he sat on my other side.
“Yup,” I acknowledged proudly, picking off a piece of lint that had fallen on the second letter E of my shirt. “An hour or so south of Nashville, depends on who’s driving. I grew up on a—”
“So,” he interrupted, “you got any hot friends?”
I blinked. “I beg your pardon?” I asked, leaning in to make sure I’d heard him correctly.
“Man, seriously!” cried Jamaal. “Could you be any more of a hornball?”
My senses had finally returned to me. I blinked again and smiled at Rod. “Would you like to see my prom pictures?”
Rod and Jamaal both stared at me this time. I took their silence as a yes. I walked over to my desk, grabbed my photo album, and opened it to my senior prom snapshots.
“Here’s me,” I said, indicat
ing my photographed self, then wearing a strapless, mint-green ball gown, “and this is my date, Tashfeen.” I flipped the page. “These are my best friends. Here’s Myrah in the pink, this one is Jakarra in the purple, and Kyion in the yellow.”
I watched as Rod’s eyes widened at me and my friends with our hair and makeup done. Not to mention our skintight prom dresses.
“Feel free to look through the rest,” I offered, sitting back down. “My family is more toward the front.”
Rod stared at me. “It was Mitzy, yeah?” I nodded. “Mitzy,” said Rod, taking my hand once again to shake it, “you clean up all right, you know that?”
I smiled. “Thank you, Rod. You’re not so bad yourself.”
Rod continued to flip through my photos, showing them to Maliha, a gorgeous olive-complected girl sitting next to him, as I turned my attention back to Jamaal. He was staring at me.
“Have I got something on my face?” I rubbed my nose.
“No. No, not at all.”
“Oh, good,” I said, relieved. “What were you staring at, then?”
He shrugged. “You. You don’t need all the makeup in that picture to look pretty. You look good just how you are.”
I smiled. “Thanks,” I said awkwardly. It was time for a subject change, and fast—I wasn’t used to compliments. “So, Jamaal, we now know I’m from Tennessee, but the knowledge of your former place of residence is still unknown.”
His eyes brightened. I could tell he appreciated the new topic of conversation. “Detroit. But I mean real Detroit, not suburbs Detroit.”
“I’ve never been there,” I admitted.
“That’s okay. I’ve never been to Nashville. But you should come to Detroit sometime. I think you’d like it there.”
“You think so?”
“Sure! We have a hoedown every summer—if you like country music, that is. I don’t want to stereotype,” he said, throwing me a wink. “I mean, not all southern people can possibly like country, right?”