Learning to Fly (9 page)

“What did you do?” I ask and wipe the beer off my chest and arms. 

“My mom told me that I had all the power I needed to defeat them.  I ignored them and it finally stopped. I just like keeping them on their toes, now,” she says and laughs. Her room looks like a pink bomb exploded in it.  She grabs the handles of the two double doors, opening the large walk in closet.  Along one wall, from floor to ceiling, shoes are stacked in boxes. 

“Geez, your closet looks more like a department store than a closet.” Wide eyed, I run my fingers over some of the shoes stacked on the shelves. 

“Here, try this one.” She hands me a light pink dress that is cut way low.  “Come on, put it on already.”  I strip off the wet beer covered dress and slide the pink material over my body. 

“Woo-hoo, very sexy, Sophie.” She whistles at me and hands me a pair of nude, peep toe pumps to put on with it. 

“I’m not sure about this,” I say as I turn and look at myself in the mirror.  “Do you have a sweater?”  I ask and fold my arms over my chest. 

“Why would you need a sweater?”

“I feel like I’m basically naked. I swear I can see my belly button.”  Kass laughs at me. “Do you have anything with more material in purple?” I ask sheepishly.

“Ooh, no. Why would you want to wear purple?” She asks with a turned up face. 

“It’s not a purple, more of a lighter shade, like lilac.  MJ told me it would be a good color for me.” I say with a smile. 

Kass sits me down on a chair in her room.  “Let’s get a few things straight: first, don’t ever accept advice from MJ; that nerd wouldn’t know fashion if it hit her in the face. Second, I don’t like her and you’ll never see her with an invite to any of my parties.

I watch as she walks around me, examines me, and puts her finger on her lips. “Sophie, you’re gorgeous; I would give anything to have your boobs and ass. I think you would look great with highlights in your hair.” She plays with some of my dirty blonde strands.  “Do you have someone who cuts your hair?”  I start to squirm; I feel so uncomfortable under this scrutiny. 

“No, my mom has always cut it herself.” I say. 

“Oh, I remember those mom haircuts.”  She puts a hand on my shoulder.  “I am going to make you my new project.  We’ll work on hair, nails, and clothes.” 

My mind starts to add up the numbers; all of those things cost money and I don’t have any of my own and don’t want to ask Larry for help.

“Don’t worry, it’s my treat.  My stepdad owns a chain of salons and, as for clothes, I have so many things I could never wear them all.” She smiles and hugs me.  We walk back down the stairs and I look for Alex.

“Damn, girl, you look good! “Monte says. 

“Sexy Sophie, let me buy you a drink.” Jake holds out his arms and Kass and I each grab a side.
The three of us make our way to the kitchen where Alex is doing shots of some sort with a group of people.  “Give me another shot,” Alex says groggily. 

“Hey, babe.” I say.

“I see what took you so long,” Alex says and half misses my mouth when he kisses me. 

“Do you want a shot, too?”  A makeshift bartender asks me. 

“What is it?” I ask and sniff the liquid in the glass.

“Down the hatch,” they all say in unison and I swallow the shot and let out hard gasp. 

“Damn, that burns.” I can feel my eyes watering.  I have a few more shots and each one burns less than the last. 

“I don’t think I’m very good company, I should get going.” Alex announces a bit later on.  I watch him stumble and realize he’s in no condition to drive.  “Kass would your folks mind if Alex stays the night?” 

“They won’t care because they aren’t here.  We have two guest rooms upstairs and a pullout sofa downstairs: your choice.” 

“I think Alex and I will take one of the rooms upstairs.”  It takes Jake and me, on either side of Alex, to get him upstairs to the room.

“Thank you so much, I appreciate it.” I say and shut the door after we get inside. 

“Are you going to give me a surprise, Soph?”  Alex says and sprawls across the floral comforter. 

I crawl up on the bed, lean over him, and give him a hard passionate kiss. 

“Wow, what was that for?” He asks.

“That’s your reward for being such a great boyfriend and not drinking and driving tonight.”  I finish pulling his shoes and socks off, remove my pumps, and climb up beside him.

“Let’s go for a drive tomorrow just the two of us, spend the day alone.” Alex says. 

“Alex, as wonderful as that sounds, I have to study.  Don’t you remember, I agreed to come to this party as long as I could have tomorrow to study?”

“That’s part of your problem, you worry too much. You have an A average already.  What’s the worst that can happen, you get a B and ruin your perfect A average?  You can always come to Penn,” Alex says and rolls over onto the pillow.

“If I had my football scholarship in the bag like you, I wouldn’t worry about test scores either, but I don’t and I have to.” I say defensively.  “I’ve gotten B’s on my last few tests.  I need to get good grades to get into Brown.”

“You’re right, Soph, I’m sorry; I just had too much to drink.” He reaches over for me and I get out of the bed. 

“What’s going on with you? You’ve been acting like such an ass lately and I know you haven’t been drinking 24/7.” I give him a harsh look.

“I already said I was sorry, what more do you want from me?” Alex asks.

“I would like for it to be about me once in a while.  I understand you have a lot of pressure on you, with your dad, football, and scouts.  I’ll support you any way that I can.”

“Prove it, make me feel better, Sophie” Alex chimes in and I can feel my temper start to boil.

“What do you want, Alex? Is this what you want?” I remove all my clothes and I’m left standing in my bra and panties.  “Here Alex, here I am, come take me.” I say and lay myself across the bed. 

“Stop being so ridiculous, Soph.” Alex says.  “I’m not trying to rush it; but it seems like, even though were spending time to get to know one another better, nothing seems to change.  I want to know how you see this going in the future.” Alex questions and I feel conflicted.
I start to wonder if this is really Alex or just the alcohol talking.

“Alex, this is a big step for me. I want to take it when I’m ready. Being raised by a single teenage mom has helped me to know what I do and don’t want for my life.  So I’m sorry if getting groped, or losing my v-card in the back of a sexy quarterback’s car, isn’t high on my priority list.” I shrug the dress back on over my head and go look for Kass.  When I find her, she is in the kitchen cleaning up and throwing away all the blue cups and plates that were left lying around. 

“That was fast.” Kass says and looks at the clock on the wall.

“Need some help?” I ask.

“Really, Soph, why are you down here instead of getting some one on one time with the quarterback?”

I sigh loudly.  “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure”

“How do you know that Jake is the one for you?”  Kass looks at me, bringing her brows together.

“That’s a strange question to ask.” She cocks her head to the side and starts to smile.  “I love the people we are when we’re alone together.  Jake accepts me for who I am and I can totally be myself around him; I love that.  We disagree sometimes and we argue, because we are still two different people.  At the end of the day, he’s the one I want to share everything with.”  Her eyes twinkle as she talks about their relationship and I feel like so much is missing from mine.

“How long did you wait before you and Jake had sex?”  I turn from her, pick up trash, and put it into a black garbage bag.

“Oh, I see where this is going.  I’ve known Alex for a long time and, to tell you the truth, I’ve never seen him act, with anyone else, the way he does with you.” 

“Thanks for saying that, Kass. I try so hard to be a great girlfriend to him.”  I confess.

“What do you mean try?” 

“I make sure that I’m at every game, I let him pick what we do, when we do it, and I have the declining test scores to prove it.”

“Girl please, Alex likes you for you.  If you keep being who you think he wants you to be, it’s going to backfire on you.  Either you are going to get tired of pretending or he’s going to get upset when he stops seeing the girl that he fell for.”

In the morning, I wake with a slight headache, and I am sure Alex will feel a lot worse.  I get up and go downstairs to look for some juice and aspirin. “Good Morning, Sophie,” Kass says.

“Good morning to you, too,” I say.  “I guess I overslept.”  I was surprised to see everyone was sitting around the kitchen island putting together a makeshift breakfast. 

“What time is it?” I ask the group and look around for the time. 

“It’s 6:30,” Monte replies. 

“Yeah, this blows. We don’t have school but our bodies are still on school time.”  Jake wraps his arms around Kass and kisses her cheek. 

“We have enough stuff to make bacon, sausage, and French toast.” Kass announces. 

I grab the mixing bowl and eggs off the island, and I made my way over to the sink. I crack the eggs and put the shells in the disposal.  “Ok, I need the cinnamon, sugar, vanilla, and milk.”  Jake gets the ingredients I need and brings them to the counter beside me.  “Thanks, Jake.  Maybe we should put cute little apron on you.”  I jest. 

“If anyone is going to wear a cute apron for Soph, it’s going to be me.”  I turn and see Alex leaning against the island.  He’s bare foot and wearing only a pair of loose swim trunks.  His hair has little messy spikes all over it.  Even with bed head, he’s the most adorable thing I have ever seen. 

When the food is ready, Kass calls everyone to the dining room table.  “Alright, I want to make a toast,” she says, pinging her spoon on her glass of orange juice. 

“I want to make a toast to friendship.”

“To friendship.” We all say and clink our glasses together.

“Can you believe this?” Monte says.  “This is senior year; we won’t be able to get together like this after graduation.” 

“Have you given any thought to where you want to go to college?” I ask everyone in general.

Jake is the first to speak up. “Nothing is in concrete, yet, but I know that Kass and I are going to go to State together for the first year.” 

“That surprises me,” I say aloud.  “I figured, since you have been friends all your lives, I just assumed you would all plan to attend the same place to keep playing football together.”

“That would’ve been a nice dream.” Mike chimes in. 

“Yeah, there’s no way you could get accepted into the same college as Alex,” Kass jokes. 

“His dad wants him to go to a Big 10 football school and I don’t have enough talent or test scores to get in,” offers Mike.

"I’d give anything to go with the rest of you to school, but my choice of college has nothing to do with what I want.  I need to get an education and my dad has a plan for me.  We just need to accept the fact that next year we won’t be together," he says.  I look over at Alex and he looks so sad and alone.  I think it hits him for the first time what living up to his father’s plan will cost him.

We finish cleaning up the mess in the house and before we realize, it is time for the guys to head home in case Kass’s folks show up. After the guys leave, Kass and I spend time with girl talk.  “So is it true that your mom is married to Larry Pennington?”  She asks.

“Yes, they met after we moved here and they tied the knot after dating a few months.” I wonder why she has decided to bring him up. 

“We’ve known him for a long time; he’s a really good guy, Sophie.  You couldn’t have asked for a better guy for your mom,” she admits. 

“I don’t really have a reason not to like him.  He seems genuine and he makes her happy. I just think it’s weird that he would fall so fast for someone he just met.” 

“Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.” Kass has her hands on her hips. “You and Alex have just met and believe me; he’s falling for you, hard. My mom believes that the people we need most are put into our lives for a reason.  It’s fate.”

“I don’t know how much of that I believe.”  Looking back, I can’t see how fate has played any part in my life. 

“Ok, you guys just moved here. The first place your mother finds to look at is one of Larry’s properties.  If the newspaper hadn’t messed up and printed the ad a week early, she wouldn’t have seen it.  Larry just happened to be off for the day and was working on the place. Everyone, at least folk’s friends, think it’s such a sweet love story.  Three years ago, Larry lost his family in a horrible car accident; it was hell.  And now? Well, he smiles all the time and tells everyone how happy he is.”

I feel slightly ashamed of myself for not knowing anything about Larry and I guess I was wrong about Angie only being interested in him for his bank account.

“It is great hanging out with you.  Thanks so much for inviting me.”  I go to grab my belongings and realize that, with Alex gone, I don’t have a ride.  “I hate to be the needy new girl, Kass, but could you give me a ride home?”