Disclaimer: TC Williams High School and its environs belong to the city of Alexandria, VA. The original Titans belong to themselves, while the fictitious characters from the film Remember the Titans belong to Disney. This chapter borrows its title from the 1973 Dobie Gray song. Some very rich people own the Super Bowl; the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, owns the Vulcan Death Grip; and the poem "Sea Breeze" belongs to Stephane Mallarmé. I only own Tamsin and her uncle, Michael and his mother, Ryan, Eddie and Ma Rose.
Author's Notes: It occurred to me that Chapter 13 was getting a bit too long, so I decided to cut it up and post the first part. Deepest thanks, as always, to everyone who has been following this story. Thank you for your continued interest, and your patience. I'm sorry about the long wait — besides this, I have a couple of Harry Potter fics going, a David Eddings story that I began just recently, and at least two more RtT plot bunnies hopping around in my head! I really should finish what's on my figurative plate before starting anything new…
Chapter Thirteen — Drift Away
The argument was resolved, but it left Ronnie with a niggling feeling of unease.
It lasted through the rest of the weekend, disrupting his enjoyment of Super Bowl VII, and right into the next week. Even his friends began to notice. "Why the storm clouds, Sunshine?" Petey finally asked that Tuesday afternoon, as some of the Titans worked out in the TC Williams weight room, which was just off the gym.
Ronnie shrugged under the barbell slung across his shoulders. "Nothing important, man."
The black boy snorted skeptically. "Nothing important? You've been in a funk these past few days!"
"It's got to be something major," Ryan noted. "Your face is so long it's brushing the floor." The other boys laughed as he put on his saddest, droopiest expression.
"It's nothing," Ronnie insisted, grunting his way through another lunge.
Petey studied him intently. He looked ready to play another round of Guess What's Bothering Sunshine. "Does it have anything to do with…Tamsin?"
"Dingdingding! That is cor-RECT!" Gerry proclaimed as Ronnie's face went stony.
"You'd better shut up before I drop this barbell on your foot," the blond boy threatened.
Gerry arched an eyebrow at him. "Go ahead. It won't hurt."
Eddie stepped in between the two boys. "Look, Sunshine," he said reasonably, which was no mean feat considering he was risking getting a barbell dropped on his foot, "we're bound to find out what's bothering you sooner or later, so why don't you tell us about it now?"
"He has a point," Ryan piped up, looking expectantly at Ronnie. "And if you tell us about it now, maybe we can help you keep it from becoming a real problem in the future."
"That was mighty deep of you, brother!" Petey praised.
The other boy grinned cockily. "Thanks."
Ronnie rolled his eyes in defeat and set down his barbell. There was no point in keeping it around if he wasn't going to drop it on anyone's foot. "It's nothing, really," he said as he picked up a pair of dumbbells and began a set of arm curls. "We just had a small misunderstanding last weekend. We've cleared it up," he added, "but I'm still a bit shook up about it."
"What happened?" Petey asked.
"Well…I saw her with another guy."
"WHAT?" his friends all squawked.
"She wasn't really with him," Ronnie clarified. "Tamsin and I agreed to meet someplace last weekend and she got there before I did. Someone was just sitting with her while she waited for me." Ronnie made a wry face. "According to Tamsin, he invited himself to sit down."
"That was gutsy," Ryan said, raising his arm to do some triceps extensions. "Who was it?"
"Michael Cardinal."
The dumbbells in Gerry's hands dropped, and so did his jaw. "That pipsqueak?"
"How do you know him?" Ryan asked.
"He's in our English class." Gerry shook his head. "Michael Cardinal! I can't believe it!"
Ryan snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, I heard he's supposed to be some kind of genius or something." He made a face. "Well, Sunshine, for what it's worth, I think you and Tamsin make a better couple than the two of them ever would. He's kind of a downer."
"There you go, Sunshine!" Petey declared. "Tamsin's a serious girl, you know, and if this guy's a downer, she'll just be miserable. Tamsin needs someone light and cheery, to twinkle around her—"
Ronnie narrowed his eyes at the black boy. "I don't twinkle."
"Well, the bottom line is that you balance her out perfectly and he doesn't, all right?"
"Plus you're a good kisser," Gerry added.
Even Ronnie had to laugh at that. "Glad to know I have your seal of approval, bro."
"Feel better now?" Petey asked him.
The blond boy grinned. "Yeah, thanks."
Just then, Michael entered the gym with a couple of other boys. Ronnie and his friends saw him come in through the plate glass window set in one wall of the weight room. "Speaking of the devil," Ryan observed.
They watched Michael shoot some hoops with his friends. He wasn't very good, and he was on the small, sort of skinny side to boot. Petey snickered when the basketball took a bad hop and knocked Michael's glasses askew. "You can take him easily, Sunshine. Ol' Mikey won't be able to go chasing after Tamsin if his legs are broken."
"Hey," Ronnie protested, "I don't pick on guys smaller than me."
"Unless you've got good reason to."
Unlike Ronnie, Ray Budds wasn't averse to picking on guys smaller than him. He and the rest of the wrestling team had been practicing in one corner of the gym when Michael arrived. Presently, Ray was busy razzing the dark-haired boy for some reason or another. "Look at Coach Tyrell," Eddie noted, nodding toward where the Titans' former defensive line coach was watching the wrestling team, which he was now coaching. "He ain't doing a thing to stop Ray."
As it turned out, he didn't have to. Michael ignored Ray for as long as he could, and then jumped on the stocky older boy when his patience had apparently run out. "Whoa!" Ryan and Gerry exclaimed when Ray went down.
People gathered around them right after that, so Ronnie and his friends couldn't see what was going on, but when the crowd broke up later, they saw Ray being helped away from Michael. Their former teammate was holding his shoulder and wincing in pain. Michael, on the other hand, looked perfectly fine, if a little rumpled.
"It looks like he knows the secret of the Vulcan Death Grip," Eddie noted.
They watched Michael stalk back to his friends. "OK," Petey finally said, "so he'll put up one hell of a fight. Don't worry. If Mikey gives you any problems, we'll jump in and give you a hand."
* * *
Ever since he showed up at the coffeehouse last weekend, it was as if Michael was all over the place.
Not literally, of course, but he just kept cropping up wherever Tamsin was. It was as if he was always walking down the same hall as she, or just ahead of her in the lunch line, or in the library the same time she was there.
She definitely wasn't following him around, and she was sure Michael wasn't stalking her, either. So what was it that made their paths cross all the time?
Tamsin was again pondering that question that Wednesday afternoon when Uncle Jon paired them up to do an oral report on the Stephane Mallarmé poem "Sea Breeze." She was taking note of the deadline for the report when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
For some reason she was always aware of when Michael was looking at her. Maybe small animals felt the same way when they knew a panther was stalking them. His eyes reminded Tamsin of a jungle cat's — kind of thrillingly predatory.
Sure enough, he was looking at her when she glanced in his direction. "So, we've got a week and a half to do this thing," he said.
Tamsin looked down at her copy of the poem that Uncle Jon had assigned them. "Mm-hmm."
"That could go by pretty fast. We'd better start work on this soon."
She nodded. "Yes, we should."
"How about meeting after class so we can start discussing it?"
The question startled her. "What, today?"
"Yeah," Michael said. "Maybe we could, I don't know, go someplace, have some coffee, and talk about the poem."
"Oh." At the mention of coffee, Tamsin instantly recalled the scene in the coffeehouse last Saturday night. She glanced briefly at Ronnie, who had been looking at her, too. "Well, that would be nice," she said finally, "but I already have plans for this afternoon."
He glanced at Ronnie, too. "I see."
"I don't have a date or anything," she babbled, wondering at the same time why she felt the need to explain herself to him. "I was planning to use this afternoon to work on a Social Studies paper."
"How about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow's…fine," she admitted. "But can we meet in the library instead? I can't really work with, uh, coffee around. I mean, distractions…you know." In truth, she did her best work when there was food and music around, but she wanted to make it clear that they were meeting only for schoolwork. It wasn't supposed to be fun. "And in the library we have all the reference books at our disposal."
He smiled. "You've got a point. So…I'll see you tomorrow in the library? After class?"
"Yeah, sure."
* * *
Sea BreezeHow sad the flesh! and there's no more to read
Escape, far off! I feel that somewhere birds
Are drunk to be amid strange spray and skies!
Nothing, not those old gardens eyes reflect
Can now restrain this heart steeped in the sea
Oh, nights! Nor the lone brightness of my lamp
On the blank paper which its whiteness shields
Nor the young wife, her baby at breast
I shall depart! Steamer with swaying masts,
Raise anchor for exotic wilderness!
Tedium, desolated by cruel hope,
Has faith still in great fluttering farewells!
And, it may be, the masts, inviting storms
Are of the sort that wind inclines to wrecks
Lost, with no mast, no mast, or verdant isle…
But listen, oh my heart, the sailors sing!
"Well, the narrator is obviously yearning for change," Michael said after they had contemplated the poem for a while.
Tamsin nodded, writing notes quickly on a blank sheet of paper before her. "He envies the birds who get to go wherever they want, whenever they want."
"And he's willing to leave the comforts of home just to be somewhere else."
"Look at this." She tapped her pen on the appropriate line. "'Old gardens eyes' — doesn't that make you think of old ladies gossiping? Like they're talking over their hedges or something?"
Michael gave a husky chuckle. "Yeah, it does. That's a great image."
She turned to look at him. "So it's like the narrator doesn't care—"
"Hey there, Miss Tamsin!" a voice blared in her ear. "What's up?"
Tamsin jumped, startled, and whipped around to see Petey hanging over the back of her chair. "We were working on a report for English before you decided to try and give me a heart attack," she told him.
"'We?' Who's 'we'?" The black boy did a comedic double take before finally noticing Michael sitting right beside Tamsin. "Oh! Hey, Mikey!" Petey greeted the dark-haired boy with a comradely slug on the shoulder. "So you and Tamsin here are English partners, huh?"
"Yes," Michael replied, rubbing his shoulder.
"That's cool. Miss Tamsin here is a really smart chick—I mean, woman," Petey amended hastily when Tamsin shot him a look. "Girl. Lady. Young lady. Whatever."
She couldn't help but laugh at how a big guy like him could be afraid of someone like her. Maybe it was a result of his friendship with Ronnie. "Thank you, Petey. Now go away before the librarian comes after you."
"Y'all behave now!" Petey admonished before he did go away.
"Sorry about that," Tamsin mumbled as she turned back to the task at hand.
"No problem," Michael replied.
"I hope Petey didn't hit you too hard. He can be kind of…exuberant."
"I'll live." He looked at her intently, the wire rims of his eyeglasses glinting in the afternoon light. "So, you were saying something about 'old gardens eyes'?"
She blinked. "Uh, yeah, I was. Like I said, it makes me think of gossipy old ladies — you know, the so-called pillars of society who get together and talk about people behind their backs…anyway, for me it's like they represent social convention, and the narrator wants to get out of where he is really badly that he's willing to flout them."
Michael smiled. "That's really good. Graham will love that. And don't forget to use the word 'flout.'"
Tamsin laughed and wrote it down.
"What's the joke, guys?" another gratingly familiar male voice asked.
She looked up to see Alan walking by. "Nothing, Alan," she told him. "We were just talking about the report we're doing for English."
"Really?" The blond boy drew nearer. "What have you got so far?"
"Just a few ideas. Why are you asking? Didn't you get a different poem?"
"Yeah, but I want to know how you're doing!" he told her, his eyes wide. "Is it a crime to check up on your friends' progress and see if they need any help? What do you think, Mikey?"
Tamsin rolled her eyes. It was starting to seem as if Ronnie's friends had taken it upon themselves to chaperone her library session with Michael. "Thank you for your concern, Alan, but we're doing just fine. We'll let you know if we need any help, OK?"
"OK. If you need me, I'll be right over there."
"Your boyfriend has some very, er, helpful friends," Michael observed when Alan had gone to sit at a table just a few yards away.
"Yeah," Tamsin agreed wryly. "They look out for each other, and they look out for me, too."
"I guess they see you as one of them by virtue of association."
They tried to get back to work, but just moments after Alan had left, Gerry wheeled by with Emma by his side to leave a football magazine with her. "Sunshine's been wanting to borrow this," he explained, "and I figured you could pass it along to him since you're sure to see each other after this — aren't you?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm going straight home by myself after I'm done here," she told him, hard-pressed to keep the impatience from her voice.
"Well, hang on to it anyway. Chances are, you'll be the first to see him tomorrow."
"Don't forget our double date tomorrow night!" Emma chirped as she left with Gerry.
Tamsin shoved the magazine into her notebook. "I am so sorry about this, Michael."
Michael waved away her apology. "No, I'm sorry. Meeting this afternoon was my idea."
"Well, your friends aren't here disrupting everything."
He shrugged. "Anyway, how about a rain check?"
"Sure." She narrowed her eyes at Alan, who ducked behind a thick book that looked to be upside-down. "I don't think we'll get much work done if we decide to carry on today."
The dark-haired boy nodded and began to gather up his things. "Guess there's no point to hanging around here, then."
"Yeah, I might as well go home, too. It's my turn to cook dinner tonight."
More than a few pairs of eyes were trained on Tamsin and Michael as they got up and made ready to leave. She gave the Titans one final eye roll before walking out of the library. "Are you taking the bus home?" she asked as they walked down the hall.
"No, my mom's picking me up," Michael replied, not sounding the least bit embarrassed about it.
As it turned out, she was waiting right outside when they stepped out of the school building. "Over here, babe!" a woman called out, waving at him from the front window of a Volkswagen van.
"Wanna meet my mom?" Michael mumbled.
Tamsin smiled. He hadn't been embarrassed by the fact that his mother was picking him up, but the loud greeting did the trick. She could empathize; her own mother, being an actress, could project her voice very well, too. "Sure."
Michael's mother was thin, with short-cropped red hair and a sharp nose. She was wearing long, dangly earrings and sunglasses that made it impossible to see the color of her eyes. "Studying all done, babe?" she asked in a cheerful voice when Michael and Tamsin drew near.
"Yeah, for today, anyway," Michael replied. "Oh, Mom, this is Tamsin Lee. We're working on the English report together. Tamsin, this is my mom."
"Good afternoon, ma'am," Tamsin said shyly.
The woman smiled at her. "Pleased to meet you, honey; and call me 'Annette,' will you? 'Ma'am' makes me feel positively ancient."
She laughed. Her mother hated being called 'ma'am,' too. "All right."
"Can we take you anywhere, Tamsin?" Annette asked.
"Oh, no, thank you, uh, Annette. My house is just one bus ride from here."
"Maybe next time, then," Michael's mother said good-naturedly. "Well, we'd better get going. Get in the car, Michael."
"Yes, Mom. See you, Tamsin," Michael said before walking around the van and getting into the passenger's seat.
"See you," Tamsin echoed, rubbing her shoulder where he had touched her.
* * *
"Aaaaand they're out of here!" Ronnie declared in a ballpark-announcer voice as Tamsin's envelopes slid into the mailbox.
"Well, that's the last of them," she said, sighing as he put his arm around her.
He leaned down to give her a comforting kiss, not caring in the least that they were standing on a busy street corner on a Saturday afternoon. "Hey, don't worry, I'm sure at least one of them will come through for you."
"I hope so. I don't want to think that I spent all that time and money for nothing!"
"Then don't think about it." Ronnie smiled down at her and tugged on her hand. "Come on, let's go get some ice cream."
"Ice cream and hot chocolate at the same time?" Ma Rose exclaimed when they had entered her diner and placed their order. "Make your mind up, honey child — do you want to warm up or cool down?"
"Come on, Ma Rose," Ronnie said, turning on what Tamsin called his "winning grin," "you know we can't resist your homemade ice cream even when the weather's so cold that the ice cream is harder outside the freezer than it is inside."
The matronly black woman gave him a baleful look over the rims of her bifocals, but her lips were thin with suppressed mirth. It was the same kind of look that Tamsin gave him when he used the grin on her, so he knew he had won.
"You are so bad," Tamsin told him as they walked to their usual booth near the jukebox.
"But you love me anyway," he bantered back, still flashing the Grin.
"You are also very bright and chipper today."
"Why shouldn't I be? It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I'm with you."
"Stop, you're making me blush." And she was indeed blushing. She always did when he used the Grin too long on her. (And maybe his talk about her loving him had something to do with it as well.)
Presently, Ma Rose arrived with their sundaes and hot chocolate. "Here you go," she said, serving each of them in turn. 'Dig in — but don't mix up the hot and the cold too much or you'll give yourselves stomach aches!"
"Thanks, Ma Rose." As the owner of the diner shuffled away, Ronnie used his spoon to transfer the marshmallow cream from his hot chocolate to Tamsin's.
Tamsin smiled at the double pile of pillowy white stuff now melting in her cup. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he replied, and then tackled his ice cream. Ma Rose's had to have the best chocolate ice cream he had ever tasted. "This is nice, isn't it?"
"It's nice to be able to relax after all that schoolwork and those damn essays," she agreed.
Thoughts of the English report — and of Tamsin and Michael being partners on the English report — flickered across Ronnie's mind and he resolutely pushed them away. It was time to leave behind whatever had happened during the past week. He knew he wasn't in the best of moods for most of it and he was anxious to make it up to Tamsin. "Yeah," he said, and reached out to take her hand. It was warm from holding her hot chocolate. "I missed you."
Tamsin smiled back. "I missed you, too."
They ate in companionable silence, pausing only to change the song on the jukebox. Ma Rose's jukebox only had blues and Motown records on it, but they didn't mind. (It was still kind of hard to have a proper date when the music in the background reminded Tamsin of her mother, though.)
After the ice cream, Ronnie suggested a walk in the park. It was a good afternoon for it. "It's getting a bit warmer," he noted.
Tamsin looked skywards to feel the sunlight on her face. Her yellow knit hat made him think of a thirsty sunflower. "Thank goodness," she said. "Winter can get really dreary when it goes on for too long."
"I don't know about that," Ronnie replied. "It's never too long for me. I guess I've spent too many years in warm places."
"I guess."
"Besides, there are lots of fun things to do in the snow. Like this!" he said as he scooped some up and let it drop with a splat on her head.
"What the…? Ronnie!" Tamsin sputtered, getting some of her own and chasing him around with it before she gave up and tried to catch her breath instead. "No fair!" she wheezed after him. "You're too…whatever!"
Ronnie ran, laughing, until he was several yards away, but when he realized she wasn't still running after him, he came right back. "Hey, are you OK?"
She sidestepped him neatly and shoved him into a snowdrift. "I am now!" she chortled.
"Oh, shit! You little…! Come here!" He came up with another handful of snow, which he proceeded to send down her back.
"Stop it!" Tamsin yelped. "It's not fair, you're bigger and faster and meaner than me! I got more snow on you than you did on me, though," she added smugly when he finally stopped to let her shake snow out of her clothes.
"And I'm supposed to be meaner than you?" Ronnie chuckled, dusting off the back of her jacket. "You're going to need to warm up again."
"Oh, don't worry about that." She smiled up at him, her nose and cheeks pink from the cold and the activity. "I'm quite warm enough already."
"Well, we still probably shouldn't be hanging around out here anyway." He grinned and kissed her before taking her hand. Tamsin tasted like strawberry ice cream. "Come on, let's go to the bookstore."