Author's Note: Hooray for this chapter. Which is substantially longer than the last one. But I have this idea in my head that Tammy would be like hyper verbal and therefore a story told through her point of view would therefore be a bit wordy. I really like this chapter. I think its a good window into her life post Duck and all. Also, someone said something about a JuliePortman, not in this story, as it is a companion piece to Just one of the Guys and The Girl This Guy Always Wanted, which are my wonderful JulieAdams, there's just this one scene in Just one of the Guys where Portman tells Julie how hot she is. That's what the whole him checking her out thing was preface to. Just so you know. The companion-ness becomes more obvious in this chapter.
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Chapter 3: Together Again
I don't think I've been this excited since I found out I was getting my Olympic tryout. I mean, excited and nervous, I haven't seen the Ducks in like a year and a half. And well, what if everything's different. What if they take one look at me and think "Who does this bitch think she is, coming back out of nowhere and expecting things to be the way they were?" Oh my God! What if they think that?
"Earth to Tammy!" Jesse says, "Where'd you go just now?"
"Oh my God Jesse!" I squeak, "They're going to hate me!"
"What?" He says, "Are you crazy? They won't hate you, they love you, Ducks fly together."
"I wasn't even there for Ducks fly together," I say, "And I mean, what is Julie going to think of me? She's like totally bad ass, and from what they said about her when I last saw them, she probably wouldn't put up with me."
"Julie likes everyone," Jesse says laughing, "She's not really that bad ass off the ice Tam, I mean, she's tomboy, but she's great. Don't worry."
I take a deep breath and we pull up. Seeing Mickey's, wow, just so many memories attached to everything that I see here. My parents gave me a choice when my training ended, we could start over someplace else or go home to Minneapolis, it was barely a second thought. Go home, I said, go home to Minnesota, to the Ducks, to, well, to him. Jesse stops the car and I can barely contain myself I jump out and run in. They're all sitting at the counter. I freeze, wow, OK, deep breath. I can do this, I can so do this.
"Yeah, we could use something nice to look at," I hear one of the new guys say. There we go, an in to the conversation.
"Now that's where a girl wants to come into a conversation." I say with this sort of coy giggle. They all turn around.
"Tammy," Fulton stands up and walks over. I smile, I can't help it. "Hey."
"Hi," All of a sudden I can't talk. Or breath. And my heart is going like crazy. And they're all staring at me, they think I'm a total freak for coming back here.
"Tam, that was not cool, just jumping out of the car like that," Jesse comes in after me, "Hey guys." Thank God!
"Hey Jesse," Guy stands up, which makes me realize, Connie isn't around, "You could have mentioned the bringing of Tammy. Connie would've come then."
"Oh, she's not here?" I sigh, "I was really hoping to see her again!" I was, Connie and I had our first slumber party together, we're totally old school girl friends.
"Yeah," Jesse says, "It was sort of last minute," He smiles at me.
"When'd you get back into town?" Fulton asks, he puts his arm around my shoulder and takes me to sit down next to him. I could puke my stomach is churning so much. "I thought you were training for Nagano?"
"I was," I explain, "I didn't make the cut, some little princess from Texas, Tara something, and this Asian girl from LA are the top two for USA."
"Michelle Kwan" The little Asian kid, Ken, that's his name "I skated with her once. She's good."
"You figure skate?" I say, OK, so maybe I'm a little too eager, but I do miss the shop talk.
"Yup, I was supposed to go to Nagano too," He nods, "I quit though." Of course I know this, all the coaches talk about Ken Wu, who probably had more potential than any male skater and I quote "Threw it away for nothing." I argued once that they didn't know anything, the Ducks aren't nothing, they're everything!
"We should try for doubles," I tease. He laughs, the rest of them look confused. Not their fault, it reality its just that doubles men need to be a lot bigger than singles, because of all the tossing, I smile and look around, "Anyway, I'm back, and I'm in homeroom with Jesse, and he said that he was meeting up with the Ducks, and I insisted that I come along." I take in the new guys, obviously no one is going to introduce me. What the Ducks lack in manners, they make up in enthusiasm "Let me guess, well, obviously Ken, and you're Dwayne, Russ," I watched the Goodwill Games, I kept track, "Luis?" He nods, "Which leaves Portman." I nod and point to him. "You I've heard a lot about." From Jesse, at lunch, because I was asking about Fulton, which for some reason lead to a lot of talk about Portman, I get it, he's his best friend or whatever.
"Yeah I've heard a lot about you too honey," He smirks. What is that supposed to mean? "You know just generally."
"Right," I nod, still confused "And where's Julie? I really wanted to meet her."
"She's probably with Ben," Banks mumbles. I look over at him, first time I've heard him speak in a while.
"Ooh, gossip," I lean over to him, "Who's Ben?"
"Ben's a varsity dick head who wants to screw Julie," Charlie says. "And from the looks of things she's going let him."
"Oh, but you like her right Cake Eater?" I look at Adam. "That sucks."
"It's cool," Fulton smiles, "Adam's got a hot little psycho."
"Bailey's not a psycho!" He defends himself, "And yes Tammy, there was a time,"
"Two days ago," Charlie coughs, I try not to laugh. This was the kind of thing I totally missed.
"When I would have liked to pursue something beyond friendship with Julie," He says, all calm and Adam like. Nice try man, if even me the magical disappearing figure skater knew that you had a mondo crush on this girl, well, its there, "But now I have a girlfriend. Her name is Bailey and she's great."
"They say she's a psycho," I say. I'm slightly more inclined to believe them than him, just you know, an instinct
"She's just energetic," He explains.
"Whatever, I need the toilet," I shrug and walk away. Amazing, ten minutes and I'm already back in Duck world, that is I can say that I'm going to pee in front of guys. "OK," I say, once I'm back, as much as I'd love to stay and eat greasy diner food, "It was really good to see slash meet you guys, but I do have to get home."
"You need the ride?" Jesse says, holding up his keys. I shake my head.
"No," I say quietly, "I'll walk, it'll be nice to see the old neighborhood again. Bye guys!"
"Bye Tammy," They all say. I smile and wave. So, that was a bust. Or, I guess not a total bust, but he barely even looked at me. At least he put his arm around me though, that was good.
"Hey, Tammy!" I hear him shouting right as I'm out the door.
"Oh," I smile, "Um, hey."
"Listen, I know you're probably busy," He looks down, "Getting all moved in and everything, but um, do you want to hang out this weekend?" I swallow, and my stomach flips, and my heart races and every other stupid cliché out there. YES YES YES! That's what I want to say, I want to jump up and down and scream the word, "YES!" However then I would be, as my mother says, "making a spectacle." And guys don't like that.
"That sounds great," I say, "With like the team?" I have to make sure this is for real, not just him being friendly.
"Oh, well yeah," He says and shuffles his feet, "If that's what you want, but I was thinking more like, just you and me, more like a date." I smile.
"Absolutely," I say, "IM me," I pull a pen out of my purse and scribble my screen name on his hand, "We'll make plans."
"IcePrincess05," He smiles. "Not bad."
"People always ask what the numbers mean," I blush, "And no one ever believes that I played hockey." He smiles. "It was good to see you again."
"You too," He says, "I'll talk to you later." He turns around and walks inside. I float home. And here I thought today was going to suck.
I walk into the house. We're pretty much moved back in. I love this house, it's a little smaller than the one we lived in while I was training, but its so much more, well, its home, that one wasn't.
"Tamala ding dong!" My dad shouts from the family room, I sigh and walk in, "Hey, Princess, how'd the whole new school thing go?"
"Good," I nod, "Jesse Hall was there. And then we met the Ducks at the diner."
"Oh," He nods, "And that one you have the crush on?"
"Dad!" I squeak, and blush. I tell my dad everything, he's my total confidant. Which I know sounds lame, but because my mom was my skating coach, I needed to have one parent who I could pal around with, and it wasn't her. He smiles, I know he's just teasing me. "Is that pizza?" I smile. We haven't had pizza in this family in about seven years.
"Mm hm," He said, "But not for you, your salad is in the fridge," I frown. "I don't make the rules Tammy."
"Dad," I look at him seriously, "I'm not competing anymore, I can eat pizza now."
"Fine," He says, "One slice." I giggle and pick one up.
"I won't tell if you won't," I smile and take a bite, one perfect, hot, melty, cheesy, saucey delicious bite. Sure, I have had pizza before, I mean, all the girls used to sneak it. But this is amazing, because this is guilt free pizza. "And he was there, and he asked me out on a date." He looks at me, "And I said yes."
"Eating pizza, going out on dates," He smiles, "This normal teenage girl thing seems to be working out very well for you."
"They asked me to try out for cheerleading too," I joke, "But I figure I should walk before I run."
"I swear the people around here would think you'd never even seen good rink space before," My mom walks in complaining. I roll my eyes. Yes, in Minnesota, they have no decent ice rinks, "Tammy, are you eating pizza?" I stop, I'm caught, "Tom, why did you let her eat pizza?"
"She said that under the new rules she's allowed to have it," My dad shrugs, I smile.
"Remember Mom?" I smile, "Since I'm not competing anymore?"
"Who says you're not competing anymore?" She says.
"The USOC?" I shrug.
"Nagano was a setback Tamara," She looks at me, "You train for another year, you can go back to World Championships for the next few years, and you can go to the 2002 games no problem, you'll only be nineteen, it's not prime age, but its hardly retirement,"
"No!" I say standing up, "I'm done, Mom, I took my shot, I've yet to make it past semis at Worlds and I've gone three times! I'm not world class, I've accepted it, it's time for you to!" I run upstairs and fall back on my bed. When's she going to see? It's not my dream anymore.
"Tammy?" Tommy walks in, "They sent me up to check on you." I sit up and smile. "Are you OK?"
"Yeah, I'm great baby brother," I say.
"So," He says, "I saw Terry Hall at school. He looked at me like I had five heads."
"Really?" I say, "Jesse was great, I even went with him to Mickey's to see all the other Ducks."
"How were they?" He says, "The new kids and everything?" I nod.
"They're good, the new kids fit right in," I sigh, "I don't think we've been missed." He nods.
"What about Fulton?" He raises his eyebrows, I break into a wide grin. "That good huh?"
"He asked me out," I say and giggle.
"Good for you," He laughs, "If he touches you I'll kill him."
"You and Fulton Reed in a fight," I smile, "Now that's something I'd like to see." He smiles.
"Have you told her yet?" He asks.
"No," I shake my head. "And I'm not going to, she'll find some way to ruin it. I just want to be normal!"
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