I can hear a radio blaring from the other end of the corridor as I walk through the girls dorms for my first lesson with TJ. Fortunately it's only 3:00 and most of the student body isn't around. I don't think anyone wants to hear the off key, rendition of Sweet Home Alabama that's flooding the hallway, from the room of who ever is attempting to sing along with their stereo.
"In Birmingham they love the governor, fool, fool, fool. Now we all did what we could do. Now Watergate does not bother me. Does you conscience bother you, tell the truth."
As I get closer to Tricia-Jeans room I realize she's the one with the voice that sounds a cat stuck in the dryer. I can tell you one thing, she doesn't have much going for her, well other then a nice body and some football skills. I knock on the door only twice this time before she opens it. Her face is glowing and I can tell she was having a fantastic time before I interrupted.
"You're early." TJ states hitting the power button on her CD player.
"Coach Orion pushed back practice today, so he could take his daughter to physical therapy." Tell her tossing my book bag onto the floor. "So you're a Skynyrd fan?"
She blushes slightly, I have to say I find it cute, it's good to know there is some form of human emotion in the girl.
"Uh, yeah, I grew up on Lynyrd Skynyrd. My father's way into southern rock. Do you like them?" A surprised look comes over her face.
"Hell yeah, I am from Florida, I wouldn't feel like a real Floridian if I didn't."
"That's right they started in Jacksonville, how away from there do you live?"
"Miami's a little while away, a couple hours I think."
"Have you ever been there?"
"No." I shake my head.
"So what's you favorite of their songs?"
"The Ballad Of Curtis Lowe, or maybe Georgia Peaches. Why do you care about any of this all of a sudden?"
"I don't." She says shortly.
"Kay, then let's get started, I've got other things to do." I don't of course being that since Darcy a few weeks ago, it seems like the entire female portion of the student body is boycotting me or something.
It's the next day and I'm sitting in my dorm waiting for TJ to show, Dwayne went to the mall with Ali so we'll have the to ourselves. Truth be told I think Tricia-Jean scares him, so he didn't wanna be around. Not that I can blame him completely, she is pretty intimidating, especially with those arms of hers. She must shot those footballs like a canon.
Today we're working on the project, we agreed last night to alternate between her Spanish tutoring and the assignment. I've cleaned my room, believe it or not, for her arrival. Well if you consider stuffing the smelliest of my dirty laundry in the closet and turning my pizza stained comforter over so the cleaner side was out, cleaning. I do.
I'm stuffing the rest of my junk under the bed when she walks in while knocking. I wonder if she realizes that knocking has no purpose if she's just going to walk in.
"Oh honey you cleaned, how sweet." Tricia teases in a voice so lathered in sticky sweetness it's downright rude.
"Haha." I laugh sarcastically. "So you ready to get started?"
"Yeah." She sighs.
"Great, make yourself comfortable."
She nods and heads over to my bed and from what I can tell is about to sit down, before she slides to the floor in a perfect split.
"What was that?" I gasp wide eyed.
"I didn't wanna sit on your bed, something tells me the sheets haven't been washed since Ronald Reagan was in office." TJ replies.
"No, I mean what is this." I gesture to the way she's now sitting on my area rug with one leg sticking out to the side and the other folded neatly under her.
"Oh that, I took ballet for awhile, it helps with my agility."
A half hour passes and I wonder where the time has gone, between working on the Geography assignment and listening to the classic rock station on Dwayne's stereo, we hadn't really said much in the way of true conversation, and time went by quickly. Finally Tricia-Jean tosses her pencil down with a exasperated groan.
"I am so bored!"
"Me too. And I've been dyin' of thirst for twenty minutes. I'm gonna run to the vending machine, get a soda, you want one?" I offer getting up.
"Sure, thanks, um ice tea if they have it please."
"Alright, I'll be right back."
I walk out the door with a smile, she's finally lightening up. When I get back to the room with the soda in my hand, she's standing in the middle of the room doing what looks to me like bad impression of a flamingo. She's standing on one leg with the other sticking straight out behind her, extending her torso forward, and her finger tips were just grazing the ground. TJ smiles sheepishly at me and I raise my eyebrows.
"Ballet stretch, I was feeling sorta stiff from sitting on the floor so long."
"You don't strike me as the ballerina type, I'm sorry." I say with a laugh.
"I'm not really, my mother made me take it, because my older sister Colette did. She wanted to be more girly, Colette was a cheerleader and prom queen, mom nearly had a fit when she learned I wanted to play football. I'm more of a daddy's girl. He's actually the one that pushed me to play."
"He wanted his little girl to play football?" That seems a little hard to believe.
"Yeah. See my mom she was born into this aristocratic family where she was raised all prim and proper, but my father's from this little town and South Carolina, he's sort of a hick you could say. Anyway, where he grew up football was a big thing, he was a starter on his high school team. He desperately wanted my older brother Edward to follow in his footsteps, but Eddie's idea of extracurricular activities was dating. Long story short, one day dad was throwing the ball back and forth with my brother, Edward missed it, I leapt out of my chair, plucked it out of the air and tossed it back, in a pass the likes of which my dad swears he hadn't seen since Joe Montana."
I nod approvingly and then ask
"So if your dads just a country boy, how'd you wind up here?"
"It's poor luck, he took his first paycheck from bagging groceries to buy stock in some computer company that provides technological devices to NASA, in the late sixties and poof now he's a millionaire, that owns that company. He met mom at some charity banquet, they fell in love, moved to Edina and the rest is history. I've even got a bunny named Jet, because they're my favorite team."
"You have a rabbit?"
"Yup, we're so domestic. So tell me about the life of the traditional Cuban family." Tricia sips the ice tea that had been sitting almost forgotten by her side for nearly fifteen minutes.
It's funny, you know, I usually have no trouble telling girls about myself, but most of the time it's in an attempt to get them to date me, they've never actually just come right out and asked about me. Truth be told I was enjoying listening to her, the more she talks the more it seems she's willing to give me a shot, maybe even agree to see a movie with me or something. Plus I don't know what to tell her.
"What do you wanna know?"
"Anything."
"Um, well, when my parents first moved here two of my brothers and one of my sisters had already been born. None of them spoke any English and my parents still don't. They enrolled the kids in school, my dad went and got a job at a factory where they make lights and my mom started watching the neighborhood kids. We didn't have it real easy, but it could've been worse. I was gonna stay home and get a job to help out, but that was absolutely out of the question to my parents. They want me to become a doctor or a lawyer so I was forced into Eden Hall, but as weird as it sounds, I'd like to be an astronaut." I inform.
"Hmmm, I'm trying to imagine you in one of those orange spacesuits, I just can't picture it."
Just then there's a knock on the door and Charlie sticks his head in
"Team meeting in five."
"I better get going too." TJ says getting up and heading for the door.
Upon returning from the meeting, (which was just to find out what sort of pizza Orion should have on order for our victory party for the next day, a total waste of my time) I noticed Tricia-Jean's notebook peaking out from under my dresser, it looks like it has been accidentally kicked under there and forgotten. So I pick it up and take over to the girl's dorms to give it back.
When TJ's door opens she standing there in a pair of low rider black suede flares with white strings running up the legs and tying at the hip, a black sports bra is peaking out from under a white men's dress shirt that she has unbuttoned and tied just above her bellybutton, the top of her hair's pulled up and from her ears hang a pair of silver hoops. She's breath taking, I mean, think of what you consider beautiful and times it by fifty, my heart's pounding.
"You look, you look, wow." I gasp.
"Uh thanks." She looks at me as if I just told her she has bad breath, and I wonder what happened to the girl that was in my room a half hour ago laughing and bonding with me. "What do you want?"
"You left your notebook, I brought it back."
"Thank you, well if you'll excuse me I have to finish getting ready for my date with Mark." She tries to close the door but I put out my hand to stop it.
"Mark from the football team?"
"Uhuh, so?"
"His brains are in his biceps." I retort.
"I appreciate the info, bye." And with that she closes the door.
As I walk away I start to wonder if maybe TJ has an evil twin.
"In Birmingham they love the governor, fool, fool, fool. Now we all did what we could do. Now Watergate does not bother me. Does you conscience bother you, tell the truth."
As I get closer to Tricia-Jeans room I realize she's the one with the voice that sounds a cat stuck in the dryer. I can tell you one thing, she doesn't have much going for her, well other then a nice body and some football skills. I knock on the door only twice this time before she opens it. Her face is glowing and I can tell she was having a fantastic time before I interrupted.
"You're early." TJ states hitting the power button on her CD player.
"Coach Orion pushed back practice today, so he could take his daughter to physical therapy." Tell her tossing my book bag onto the floor. "So you're a Skynyrd fan?"
She blushes slightly, I have to say I find it cute, it's good to know there is some form of human emotion in the girl.
"Uh, yeah, I grew up on Lynyrd Skynyrd. My father's way into southern rock. Do you like them?" A surprised look comes over her face.
"Hell yeah, I am from Florida, I wouldn't feel like a real Floridian if I didn't."
"That's right they started in Jacksonville, how away from there do you live?"
"Miami's a little while away, a couple hours I think."
"Have you ever been there?"
"No." I shake my head.
"So what's you favorite of their songs?"
"The Ballad Of Curtis Lowe, or maybe Georgia Peaches. Why do you care about any of this all of a sudden?"
"I don't." She says shortly.
"Kay, then let's get started, I've got other things to do." I don't of course being that since Darcy a few weeks ago, it seems like the entire female portion of the student body is boycotting me or something.
It's the next day and I'm sitting in my dorm waiting for TJ to show, Dwayne went to the mall with Ali so we'll have the to ourselves. Truth be told I think Tricia-Jean scares him, so he didn't wanna be around. Not that I can blame him completely, she is pretty intimidating, especially with those arms of hers. She must shot those footballs like a canon.
Today we're working on the project, we agreed last night to alternate between her Spanish tutoring and the assignment. I've cleaned my room, believe it or not, for her arrival. Well if you consider stuffing the smelliest of my dirty laundry in the closet and turning my pizza stained comforter over so the cleaner side was out, cleaning. I do.
I'm stuffing the rest of my junk under the bed when she walks in while knocking. I wonder if she realizes that knocking has no purpose if she's just going to walk in.
"Oh honey you cleaned, how sweet." Tricia teases in a voice so lathered in sticky sweetness it's downright rude.
"Haha." I laugh sarcastically. "So you ready to get started?"
"Yeah." She sighs.
"Great, make yourself comfortable."
She nods and heads over to my bed and from what I can tell is about to sit down, before she slides to the floor in a perfect split.
"What was that?" I gasp wide eyed.
"I didn't wanna sit on your bed, something tells me the sheets haven't been washed since Ronald Reagan was in office." TJ replies.
"No, I mean what is this." I gesture to the way she's now sitting on my area rug with one leg sticking out to the side and the other folded neatly under her.
"Oh that, I took ballet for awhile, it helps with my agility."
A half hour passes and I wonder where the time has gone, between working on the Geography assignment and listening to the classic rock station on Dwayne's stereo, we hadn't really said much in the way of true conversation, and time went by quickly. Finally Tricia-Jean tosses her pencil down with a exasperated groan.
"I am so bored!"
"Me too. And I've been dyin' of thirst for twenty minutes. I'm gonna run to the vending machine, get a soda, you want one?" I offer getting up.
"Sure, thanks, um ice tea if they have it please."
"Alright, I'll be right back."
I walk out the door with a smile, she's finally lightening up. When I get back to the room with the soda in my hand, she's standing in the middle of the room doing what looks to me like bad impression of a flamingo. She's standing on one leg with the other sticking straight out behind her, extending her torso forward, and her finger tips were just grazing the ground. TJ smiles sheepishly at me and I raise my eyebrows.
"Ballet stretch, I was feeling sorta stiff from sitting on the floor so long."
"You don't strike me as the ballerina type, I'm sorry." I say with a laugh.
"I'm not really, my mother made me take it, because my older sister Colette did. She wanted to be more girly, Colette was a cheerleader and prom queen, mom nearly had a fit when she learned I wanted to play football. I'm more of a daddy's girl. He's actually the one that pushed me to play."
"He wanted his little girl to play football?" That seems a little hard to believe.
"Yeah. See my mom she was born into this aristocratic family where she was raised all prim and proper, but my father's from this little town and South Carolina, he's sort of a hick you could say. Anyway, where he grew up football was a big thing, he was a starter on his high school team. He desperately wanted my older brother Edward to follow in his footsteps, but Eddie's idea of extracurricular activities was dating. Long story short, one day dad was throwing the ball back and forth with my brother, Edward missed it, I leapt out of my chair, plucked it out of the air and tossed it back, in a pass the likes of which my dad swears he hadn't seen since Joe Montana."
I nod approvingly and then ask
"So if your dads just a country boy, how'd you wind up here?"
"It's poor luck, he took his first paycheck from bagging groceries to buy stock in some computer company that provides technological devices to NASA, in the late sixties and poof now he's a millionaire, that owns that company. He met mom at some charity banquet, they fell in love, moved to Edina and the rest is history. I've even got a bunny named Jet, because they're my favorite team."
"You have a rabbit?"
"Yup, we're so domestic. So tell me about the life of the traditional Cuban family." Tricia sips the ice tea that had been sitting almost forgotten by her side for nearly fifteen minutes.
It's funny, you know, I usually have no trouble telling girls about myself, but most of the time it's in an attempt to get them to date me, they've never actually just come right out and asked about me. Truth be told I was enjoying listening to her, the more she talks the more it seems she's willing to give me a shot, maybe even agree to see a movie with me or something. Plus I don't know what to tell her.
"What do you wanna know?"
"Anything."
"Um, well, when my parents first moved here two of my brothers and one of my sisters had already been born. None of them spoke any English and my parents still don't. They enrolled the kids in school, my dad went and got a job at a factory where they make lights and my mom started watching the neighborhood kids. We didn't have it real easy, but it could've been worse. I was gonna stay home and get a job to help out, but that was absolutely out of the question to my parents. They want me to become a doctor or a lawyer so I was forced into Eden Hall, but as weird as it sounds, I'd like to be an astronaut." I inform.
"Hmmm, I'm trying to imagine you in one of those orange spacesuits, I just can't picture it."
Just then there's a knock on the door and Charlie sticks his head in
"Team meeting in five."
"I better get going too." TJ says getting up and heading for the door.
Upon returning from the meeting, (which was just to find out what sort of pizza Orion should have on order for our victory party for the next day, a total waste of my time) I noticed Tricia-Jean's notebook peaking out from under my dresser, it looks like it has been accidentally kicked under there and forgotten. So I pick it up and take over to the girl's dorms to give it back.
When TJ's door opens she standing there in a pair of low rider black suede flares with white strings running up the legs and tying at the hip, a black sports bra is peaking out from under a white men's dress shirt that she has unbuttoned and tied just above her bellybutton, the top of her hair's pulled up and from her ears hang a pair of silver hoops. She's breath taking, I mean, think of what you consider beautiful and times it by fifty, my heart's pounding.
"You look, you look, wow." I gasp.
"Uh thanks." She looks at me as if I just told her she has bad breath, and I wonder what happened to the girl that was in my room a half hour ago laughing and bonding with me. "What do you want?"
"You left your notebook, I brought it back."
"Thank you, well if you'll excuse me I have to finish getting ready for my date with Mark." She tries to close the door but I put out my hand to stop it.
"Mark from the football team?"
"Uhuh, so?"
"His brains are in his biceps." I retort.
"I appreciate the info, bye." And with that she closes the door.
As I walk away I start to wonder if maybe TJ has an evil twin.