Maria stepped off of the bus. Her terrible eye site made it so that she couldn't really drive without wearing the world's dorkiest pair of coke bottle glasses, and the fact that she no longer had a man to take her from place to place added to the suckage. Sure Francis was around but he sucked and always had some kind of excuse as to why he couldn't take her somewhere, and while Antonio was always ready to take her where she needed to go he would have to drag his boys around as well. So the city bus was her chariot. She tucked down into the back alley way where the others that lived in her apartment building parked their cars and Maria made her way up the fire escape to the back door of the apartment that she shared with Francis doing her best to make sure she didn't drop anything on the steep iron stairs, or over the edge, her day was already sucking enough without having to make a second trip to gather what she'd dropped into the dingy parking spaces bellow.
Getting to her door she gave it a good kick. No one answered her specifically but she could hear voices inside the room. ("What was that?" a woman's voice asked. Francis had replied with "Probably just one of the neighbor kid's. They have no manners." Then something in French that Maria didn't understand but knew had to be lame and mushy—that was so Francis's style). She made a low growling noise in the back of her throat before giving the door another good kick. When that didn't warrant a reply, Maria vowed to cock-block her roommate so hard. No way in hell was she going to let him get any ass today after forcing her to go out shopping and no making her have to unlock the door on her own. She really was hoping that he was already half naked ready to put the moves on the lady friend of the week.
Under normal circumstances, Maria was willing to let things slide. She had been sex-iled from her apartment before on many occasions so that Francis could get his freak on all over the place. Hell, she was a bro, and could totally cheer him on as her did his 'thang'—but today was different he'd forced her into a dress, sent her out shopping, and was now refusing to be a man and open the door for her.
Maria pressed the bags of clothes between her body and the door, fishing the key to the door out from her bra. It probably was a safety hazard or something locking the fire escape door; but it was better than wandering into the living room in just her panties as someone tried to rob the place. The lock clicked and she made a sound of success as the bags tumbled from their tucked spot and onto the carpeted living room floor. The woman, a pretty Asian lady that Maria had never seen before, gasped as she came into the room kicking the clothes out of her path with a death glare aimed right at Francis. Francis always the master of composure just smiled at her, "Ah I see that you're home already Maria. I swear you are the only woman in need of a whole entire wardrobe that can manage to buy what she needs in only a couple of hours." He turned to look at his guest, "Ma poupée, this is my roommate Maria, as you can see she is just as rude as I was telling you she was."
"Oh I wouldn't say that…" the woman said giving Francis a confused look and clearly trying to be as polite as she could to the strange angry woman that had just kicked two bags of clothes all over the living room floor, "It's nice to meet you, Maria, I'm Kim." She stood up reaching her hand out.
Maria took it with a huge, overly eager, fake grin plastered across her face, "Oh yes of course it's nice to meet you too." She said in a voice to match the maniac smile, "Did you know there are STDs that can be contracted even when you properly use a condom?"
Kim gave her a weird look, and Francis decided it was his turn to shoot deadly glares. Though he was more careful to conceal them from the guest then his roommate had been. "Maria you're off work today, don't you think you should avoid giving people education lessons?"
"Oh Francis don't you know the job of an educator is never over! Really though Miss Kim, I feel the need to share that with you, if some people would have known that, then I wouldn't have to share that information with you. You need to be careful."
"Well thank you." She looked uneasy now, and turned to face Francis, "I suppose I should get going then." she moved around to gather up her things all the while with an awkward smile on her face, "Lunch really was lovely—I'll call you later I guess."
The Frenchman stood up from the couch and retrieved his date's jacket from the closet handing it to her. "Please do, we should go somewhere nice next time where interruptions are impossible." He lead her to the door and kissed her cheeks gently, "be safe."
"I will. And it was nice meeting you Maria."
"You too dear, and remember when you have sex, you're having sex with everyone else your partner, and their partners have ever slept with as well."
Francis shut the door and locked it before looking at his roommate, arms across his chest clearly pissed at her. "What that necessary?"
"If you would have opened the door then it wouldn't have been." Maria kicked off her shoes and made her way to the kitchenette to find something to eat, her stomach was making angry noises and she's learned a couple of weeks ago to keep her belly happy or deal with crouching over the toilet.
"You could have taken the hint and gone somewhere else until I was finished." He replied kneeling on the floor to look through what she had bought. While Francis was a lover he was also a man of fashion and what his roommate wore concerned him. He had been tempted to use her time away gathering up all of the sweatpants she's been wearing and burning them. Then he realized she would probably retaliate by torching his designer suites.
"And where the fuck would I have gone?" she asked popping a plastic container of last night's left overs in the microwave, "God knows how long you can go at it."
"Antonio could probably use a break, and you could use the practice. I fear for that child you are carrying."
"When we fucked last time you nor Antonio seemed to worry about any kid I could possibly conceive."
"Admittedly I thought your ovaries had been destroyed by your rough housing. Clearly they can withstand more then what I thought was possible. This top is cute." She said holding up a navy blue blouse that was slightly sheer she had snagged off of the clearance rack, "you actually managed to pick out some decent things. I must admit that's shocking."
"I've got taste Frenchie." She said plopping down on the couch legs propped up on the coffee table digging into her lunch.
"You could have fooled me with the way you wander around here. You dress like a homeless man."
Maria stuck her tongue out at that and flipped the TV on. "Oh, guess who lost her man again?" she sand out as Francis began to fold the clothes.
"Rue." His tone was flat.
"Yeah how did you know?" she was clearly disappointed he had found out before her.
"Antonio told me. And before you ask how he knows remember he has the boys."
"I figured that much out." She pouted.
"How did you find out?"
Maria felt her cheeks getting warm and immediately cursed her pregnancy hormones. Those damn things had her acting like a total dork in the car just thinking about Eli. It was most unawesome; like she was a middle school girl (and even when she had been in middle school, Maria had been most un middle school girl like). "I ran into Eli at the mall. He was buying some stuff for his bachelor pad."
"Is that so? How is he taking the divorce?"
"OK. Why?"
"He was pretty in love with your cousin wasn't he. Antonio was too, probably still is. I don't know what he would have done if he wasn't given custody of the boys, you know how much he loves children."
"Yeah he's a total chick when it comes to kids. Anyways Eli and I exchanged numbers so we're going to hand out when we get the chance. You know celebrate his knew found freedom, god knows he needs it after being married to Rue, poor guy probably hasn't had sex since before he go with her."
"Are you forgetting she managed to conceive twice?"
"That had to be a fluke of some kind, like Antonio came on the toilet seat. Can you really see Rue having sex. She's got to think it's absolutely filthy with all those fluids and stuff, you know?"
"Only you can make sex sound that unsexy, ma cheri Maria." Francis laughed.
Maria sat with her head on her desk. She should have known better by now then to skip breakfast. Her stomach was doing summersaults and her head was pounding. She should probably have called into work or something like that; she sighed turning her head trying to avoid making red marks appear on that side of her cheek. The worst thing about being albino wasn't the fact her eyes were shit, it was the damned lack of pigment. Not only did it make it so that the sun was her mortal enemy, but also that if she were to blush it was oh so apparent (which was unawesome to the extreme) and her face was quick to going red.
"Uh, Ms. Beilschmidt, are we going to do anything today?" a small male voice that sounded nowhere near being ready for puberty asked.
"Shut up Raivis she's clearly drunk again!" the only English boy she taught, Peter Kirkland hushed his friend. Right those stupid trumpet players thinking they knew every goddamned thing, even when they were twelve.
"I don't think she's actually drunk… maybe hung over…" the first boy said to his friend. Weren't woodwinds supposed to hate the horn section? Maria thought.
"How about you all shut it?" She groaned lifting her head up.
"Do you need to see the nurse Ms. Beilschmidt?" one of her flute players Lili said softly, "Maybe she has some pain killers for your head ache ma'am."
Trust a flute girl to be sensible. Maria felt a swell of pride in her old section. Yeah fuck the haters flute was so badass—even if most of them were prissy little girls.
"YEAH! And I can watch the class for you, conduct and everything!" Peter spoke in his loudest voice.
"Eww no—that would be terrible!" some girl that Maria didn't really care about said absolutely offended by the thought.
She was about to slip and swear at the whole lot of them—a suspension didn't sound half bad right now; but the vibration of her cell phone in her pocket distracted her. It was Eli, and suddenly Maria felt as if she had the energy to go on and was practically giddy (like only the lamest of her preteen students did when the boy they liked told them that they were looking less cootie filled then usual—or something like that). "Whatever, just run through your scales guys, I'll be listening still from the hall. Anyone who messes up I am going to beat over their head with the instrument, don't test me either." There was a unified groan, they must have thought that they were Going to get away with not doing anything, that could wait before the call went over to voicemail.
"Hello?" Maria said as soon as she made it through the double doors.
"Are you busy right now?" Eli asked right away.
"Yeah, kind of but I've got a minute. What's up?" she looked down the hallway hoping the principal would not choose right now for a surprise visit.
"I was thinking we could get together tonight, our favorite bar—you know the one that never would check our IDs." He chuckled a little bit likely thinking off all of the fun they used to half getting blitzed and still being in high school.
"Man, it's Tuesday."
"We're grown ups, we can go out on a school night. I'll even give you a ride home so you won't be out too late." That time he went all out with his laugh without going into the stupid territory where he would snort.
Maria found herself smiling thankful that it wasn't a video call. "Yeah I think I could do that. How does six sound?"
"Good."
"OK cool, I'll see you then. Sorry I've got to get going, young minds to mold and all that shit." She hung up the phone before pressing it against her chest and making an undignified squealing noise causing the chorus teacher to look out in the hallway and roll her eyes once she realized it was just her noisy coworker. If Maria wasn't on the security camera she would have flashed the snooty bitch the bird. Luckily said snooty bitch had brought her out of her stupid and that was all she needed to collect herself and get on with what she was supposed to be doing.