Fair Game: A Football Romance (71 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Holland

New York is amazing, exactly what I needed to take my mind off of King. Daddy’s meeting us at the hotel in Manhattan this morning. Mama and I flew in last night so we would be well rested for a Saturday full of touring the school and dorms, but even with all the excitement, I can’t shake the feeling of emptiness that’s been boring a hole through me all week. I’m actually kind of pissed that it’s affecting my Juilliard experience. If I hadn’t met King, I would be one hundred and ten percent peeing in my pants excited, but instead, I’m dark and gloomy inside. I put on a smile and fake it till I make it in front of my parents so they won’t be suspicious. I mean, this is my chance to study with the best of the best in the world. There should be no reason for me to be down in the dumps.

“You almost ready, honey?” Mama says from the adjoining room of the hotel suite.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there. I just have to find my shoes. Have you seen my white Converse?”

“Oh, Holland, do you have to wear those things? They aren’t very feminine or professional.” Mama is standing in the door with her hands on her hips.

“Yes, Mama, I do. We’re going to be doing a lot of walking, and I don’t want blisters on my feet. I’m wearing a skirt, see?” I say in my own defense, spinning in a circle to show that I’ve taken her advice to dress up a little. It’s a long, straight black eyelet skirt with a slit up the back. I didn’t have anything to do with this outfit, though. Savannah chose the white sleeveless blouse with a multicolored striped blazer. It’s hers. She insisted I break away from my black and white habit and add some color to my—in her own words—‘pathetically dull and boring’ ensemble. She wouldn’t approve of the shoes either, but I don’t care. This outfit’s modest, comfortable, and versatile—very much like me.

Mama rolls her eyes and turns to finish getting ready to go meet Daddy. I find my shoe tucked in the bottom my duffle bag. I swear I packed them both in my suitcase . . . Savannah. That brat tried to sabotage me. She hates Converse, says they’re clunky and sloppy. The nerve. And for some reason, she especially hates this pair that says
Love
down the back of the heel and
Life
on the other. I’m trying really hard to love life right now, so the shoes are my way of saying fuck this whole thing with King.

After a quick ride in a disgusting cab that smells like a mixture of barf and sweat, we walk past the reflecting pool in Lincoln Center and into my new home away from home, The Juilliard School. The June Noble Larkin lobby entrance is open and inviting, and I’m shocked that this enormous, foreign place actually
feels
like home the second I set foot inside.

“Sweetie, close your mouth,” My mom says, reaching out to actually close my mouth for me while Daddy brushes her hand away.

“Oh, leave her be, Gloria. She’s taking it all in. It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it, Princess?” Daddy’s arm circles my shoulder, pulling me into a side hug. God, I love him. He’s such an honest, patient, generous man that sometimes I wonder how he ended up with my mama—not that she isn’t great too. She’s just the opposite of him in every way possible.

“Yeah. Wow, it’s so much bigger than I thought. The pictures didn’t do it justice.”

“Nothing but the best for you,” Daddy says. His warm, smiling eyes are on me, and I have the sudden urge to cry. This is it; this is what I’ve worked my whole life for, what
they
have worked so hard to give me.

“Oh now, none of that, Princess. This is gonna be a fun day. no crying.” He gives me one more quick squeeze before opening the door to my future.

Juilliard is impressive and inspiring. After an hour of touring The Paul Recital Hall, The Peter Jay Sharp theater, one of ninety-eight private practice rooms, a library that houses original manuscripts by Beethoven and Mozart, and the classrooms where I’ll be taking my liberal arts classes, we are ready to head over to the dorms. Our guide suggests a lunch break first, though, so we roam the streets of Manhattan and settle on a little Italian restaurant where we stuff ourselves until we’re nauseated with the best pasta I’ve ever eaten.

An hour and a half later, our guide meets us in the lobby of The Meredith Wilson Residence Hall and we take an elevator to the seventh floor to tour a dorm suite. My parents haven’t told me anything about my living arrangements. They wanted it to be a surprise, but I couldn’t wait to see so I Googled it. I know that each suite is set up for eight students, including a common area in the center, with five connected bedrooms—three doubles and two singles. I’m assuming I will be in a double, as it’s less expensive, and I kind of like the idea of not being totally alone.

“This is nicer than my first apartment,” Mama says quietly, gazing out a bay window at the panoramic view of the Lincoln Center and Manhattan.

“Are you happy, Princess?” Daddy asks. He thinks this is the first time I’ve seen the dorms.

“Yeah, of course, Daddy. It’s beautiful. I can’t believe how much space there is.”

“Wait until you see upstairs. They have a fitness center and private practice rooms. No more driving to
STRINGS
to practice,” he says.

Our afternoon is long and exhausting. After looking through the room and all of the amenities in the residence hall, we are allowed to return to the school to wander around on our own.

When we get back at the hotel, I collapse into bed and thank God I wore my Converse. My feet ache, but it would have been so much worse if I’d worn the pumps Mama wanted me to wear.

I lay in the dark and listen to my parents chat in the room next door. You’d think they were going to be the ones living here next fall. It’s sorta cute how they banter back and forth, until I hear Mama kiss Daddy and tell him she would love to be a doe-eyed freshman if he were her professor. Ew. I get up and quietly close the adjoining door and turn on the light. My phone beeps and my heart skips a beat. I haven’t thought of King all day, but like Pavlov’s dog, the beep of an incoming text makes me hopeful. It feels like an eternity since I’ve seen his ruggedly handsome face or heard his gruff voice, and now every molecule in my body aches for his touch. Just like that, my long, happy day full of sensational new experiences turns to shit.

I toe off my shoes and kick them across the room into the bathroom and flop on my bed with a huff. I know it’s not him, but a tiny part of me wants to believe it is, so I hold the phone face down against my chest so I can’t see who it is. It beeps again, and again and again. Savannah. She’s popped my fantasy bubble with her relentless texting. I tilt the screen up and read her messages.

How’s the big apple? How was your tour?

Holland. I’m talking to you.

Don’t ignore me, woman.

Hey. Best friend Savannah here. Remember me?

My God, she’s impatient.

Keep your panties on, woman! It went great, dorms are nice and the views are phenomenal. NYC is the biggest place I’ve ever seen. Sorta scary. I think I’ll stay at school or the dorm for the entire four years . . .

No way. You have to get the whole big city experience, ride the nasty subway, get lost looking for museums, hang out in Central Park, party in clubs—oh wait, scratch that, sorry. How are you anyway?

Clubs . . . ugh . . . I can safely say that I will not be setting foot in a dance club ever again, even when I am twenty-one and legal. I think I’ve had enough of that scene to last a lifetime. I lie and tell her I’m
fine
and everything’s
fine
, but she knows
fine
is a blanket term for about a million things. This time
fine
means I’m horrible and struggling, but I’m still alive. She gets it, like only a best friend can, and steers the conversation away from any topic that might make me think of King, but it’s pointless. I’m alone and tired and emotionally spent; essentially, I’m weak. I want to call him, text him, reach out and tell him I’m thinking about him, and I miss him. I’d kill to watch his dark eyelashes fan up and down lazily, to feel his rough fingers trail up and down my bare backside while he holds me against his chest.

I’ve stopped texting and it’s my turn to reply, but I’m busy daydreaming about King, so when the phone actually rings in my hands, I jump and drop it on my face.

“Ow,” I shout, fumbling with the phone to answer it.

“Stop thinking about him,” Savannah says sternly.

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess. You haven’t responded for like five minutes, stupid. You were either asleep or thinking of him.”

“So you risked waking me up after my long day?” I say.

“Had to be sure. Now go to sleep. Think of that crazy school of yours and how cool it’s gonna be when you don’t have any parents around to tell ya what to do.” I sigh heavily into her ear. Easier said than done.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, dragging out the yes.

“Okay, night, don’t let the big city bed bugs bite.” She’s giggling now, because she knows how much I hate the thought of sleeping on sheets in a bed that millions of other people have slept on before me. They could have bedbugs—real ones.

“Shut up.”

“Shutting. Laters, baby.” Her Fifty Shades of Grey reference makes me smile. We watched FSOG with Mika one weekend when we were supposed to be studying. If my mama knew about that, she’d be as shocked as I was while watching it. I was aware of the basics about sex, but I’d never seen anything like
that
. I chalked it up to an educational experience while those two made crude remarks and laughed their horny asses off.

***

“You’re burning,” I say. Savannah has somehow fallen asleep under the scorching hot Houston, Texas sun. It’s the fourth of July and one hundred degrees in the shade. I’m panting and nauseous, desperately in need of a dip in her pool, and she’s just over there in her lounger softly snoring, one hand limp at her side, still loosely holding a romance novel she was reading earlier. I don’t know how she does it.

“Huh?” Her grip on the book tightens as she starts to come around.

“I said you’re burning, Sleeping Beauty, and I’m dying over here. Let’s get in the water before I puke all over your deck.”

“Gross. Okay, okay, ya don’t have to get all dramatic on me.” She sits up and pokes at her chest and belly, testing to see if she’s truly burned.

“Eh, it’s all good, just a little pink.”

I raise my eyebrows when she looks at me. She’s a lobster in denial.

“You must have sun stroke. You’re fried,” I say.

“Come on, pukey, let’s swim.” She waves her arm in the direction of the pool and jumps up. How the hell does she do that? I’m dizzy when I stand up slowly and carefully in this heat, but she can go from zero to sixty in ten seconds without blinking an eye. I’m more sensitive to the sun, I guess, which is weird because she’s the one with blonde hair and fair skin, and I’m as dark as my daddy in the summer.

Savannah jumps into the deep end feet first, holding her nose, and I ease in via the stairs in the shallow end and meet her halfway across the pool.

“It’s like bath water.” I wrinkle my nose and shade my eyes with one hand.

“It’s been hot as hell for three weeks straight. It never gets to cool down,” she says, smoothing her wet hair away from her face with both hands and wringing the remaining water from it.

“You wanna go inside? You don’t look so great, pukey.”

“Stop calling me that, and yes, I need to lay down.”

“I think you’re the one with sunstroke, pukey,” she says, exaggerating her new nickname for me. I cup my hands together and shove a wave of water into her face. I squeal and turn to swim away before she attacks me.

I hate that she calls me that all the time now. I had the flu and I’m still recovering, but she just won’t let it drop. Savannah may be the motherly one in our friendship, but she’s totally not into sick people, so when she had to spend a week holding my hair and bringing me Sprite, she decided to punish me with a nickname.

Mama had to work, so she begged—or more like blackmailed—Savannah to help me. She saw Savannah come home a couple of mornings at dawn when her mama was at work. She promised not to tell if she stayed with me while I was sick. She wanted to know for sure that somebody was going to be here with me, and Savannah didn’t want to risk being punished.

When Savannah opens the sliding glass door on her porch, I gulp in the cold air-conditioned air and make a beeline for the couch, where I flop down on my back and pull my towel tight around my body.

“Shit, now I’m freezing,” I say.

“Well duh, you’re all wet, and you know my mama keeps the thermostat at like 70. Ya wanna go back outside?”

“God, no. I’d rather freeze. I can’t breathe out there.” I turn onto my side and curl into a ball, watching Savannah strut around the kitchen dripping wet, fixing us some sweet tea with not so much as a shiver.

“You gonna be okay to go to fireworks tonight?”

“Yeah, I should be fine once the sun goes down.” I hope. I really don’t want to miss it. Savannah is dating a boy from our little group of friends, and everyone is getting together to watch the fireworks and build a bonfire on the beach. Savannah ditched her summer itinerary after the debacle with King and me, but she’s still trying to pack as much fun into our last summer together as possible.