Losing It

by Shay Violet

  “That’s at least a $90,000 truck,” the man in the baseball cap said, loud enough that I assumed he was talking to me. “Depending on the features, it could be six figures.”

  “It’s nice,” I said. I wasn’t normally any sort of car or truck girl; as long as it was dependable and had most of its paint, it was okay by me. Guys had tried and failed to impress me with their cars. I recalled my friend Savannah’s brother, Sly, showing off the Italian sports car he bought with his first NBA contract, a Maserati or Ferrari or one of those, and thinking sure, it’s nice, but my panties definitely weren’t going to drop because of it, regardless of his on-again, off-again relationship with Ameerah.

  But this truck and trailer held my interest. Maybe because the trailer looked like it could take off and fly away, it appealed to the sci-fi nerd in me. The truck was undeniably sexy. Muscles are sexy. And this truck had them.

  I turned to walk to Starbucks, my curiosity quenched, when I heard the trailer door open behind me and the two old men begin peppering the occupant inside with questions.

  I turned to look back and saw a man climb out and stretch. His arms went way up over his head, causing his t-shirt to raise up from his jeans, revealing his stomach for just a moment. He had defined pelvic lines disappearing down into his jeans, carved to flank his six-pack.

  I stopped in my tracks and my hand subconsciously clutched at the imaginary pearls around my neck.

  Once the abs show ended, I let my gaze travel up.

  And up some more.

  He was at least 6’3, maybe taller. He wore a faded purple t-shirt that stretched across an impressive chest with sleeves that wrapped tightly around his biceps.

  He had a light brown buzzcut and an easy smile. I watched him chat with the two older men who’d admired his trailer, and I wished I hadn’t wandered quite so far away, since I was too far away to make out his voice distinctly. I placed him somewhere in his thirties, although he could have been in his twenties. There was an easy confidence to him.

  Not wanting to appear as some kind of weird stalker or vintage Airstream trailer groupie, I continued walking to Starbucks.

  Okay, I admit it, I stopped when I hit the little outdoor seating area and pretended to be waiting for somebody so I could take another look at Mr. Purple Tee Shirt.

  He shook hands with the veterans and began walking.

  Directly. Toward. Me.

  I pretended to look at my phone, watching him walk in my peripheral vision. As he approached, he twisted his back and pulled his arms across his chest one by one to loosen up.

  I could have watched him do stretching exercises all night.

  When he hit the door, I got my first look at his butt, which pleasantly surprised me. Let’s face it, lots of white guys have a serious case of flat-ass-itis, no matter how handsome or well-built they might be. It’s just genetics.

  Not this guy. He was just the right kind of plump back there, something to grab onto.

  “Are you…?”

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. I hoped my eyes hadn’t lingered too long on his backside. Fuck my life.

  Mr. Purple Tee Shirt stood there holding the door, smiling at me. It was the first time I’d been near enough to get a good look at his eyes. Sparkling, deep blue.

  Did I say fuck my life? Fuck that. Fuck me any way you want you, stud!

  “Oh, thanks, yeah, in just a minute, my friend is meeting me here, sorry, go ahead.”

  “Guy friend or girl friend?” he asked. “Because if it’s a guy, I’ll go on in and let him get it for you. If it’s a girl, I’ll just stay here and hold the door to rack up double chivalry points. I’m trying to achieve knighthood, you know.”

  “I don’t think it works like that, exactly,” I countered.

  “In medieval times? You’re right. In modern times, however, I assure you, if I demonstrate enough courtesy, gallantry, honor, and bravery toward women, the local noblemen will have no choice but to grant me my knighthood.”

  “Slaying a dragon might help,” I suggested.

  “Indeed,” he exclaimed, and I giggled.

  “Is the notion of me slaying a dragon really that uproariously funny?” he asked with a grin. Two guys decked out in Florida State gear passed between us, leaving the coffee shop.

  “No, it’s not that at all,” I protested. “It’s just that I work with somebody who starts every other sentence with ‘Indeed!” and it just reminded me of her.”

  “Sounds like a wise woman,” he replied. “Is she a witch?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” I answered. “But she does seem to know pretty much everything. I’ve worked with her for six years and today was the first time I ever heard her say she had to Google something.”

  “She doesn’t share an eye with her two sisters, does she?” His face filled with mock concern.

  “No, she has two of her own,” I laughed. “She’s not a Stygian Witch.” This guy was making me dig deep into my nerd vault. I hadn’t thought about the Stygian Witches passing around their one shared eye and tooth in years. They’re the ones who told Perseus how to defeat the Kraken in Clash of the Titans. He did it by killing Medusa.. Okay, sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on one of my geek tangents.

  Just be glad Mr. Purple Tee Shirt didn’t reference Star Trek. You’d be here all day.

  He gave me a hard look and started peppering me with questions.

  “What’s the only state capital with over one million residents?”

  I thought a minute and flipped through them in my mind. It seemed like there must be more than one.

  Alphabetically, Arizona came up early, and I was sure Phoenix was that big, so I blurted it out.

  “Correct!” he said happily. “Goulash is the national dish of…”

  “Hungary,” I replied.

  “Only one state in the United States grows coffee. Name it,” he challenged me.

  I immediately wanted to say Florida, since they seem to grow everything here, and lots of weird things that don’t seem to grow anywhere else flourish in Florida, but I had never heard of a coffee farm or plantation in the six years I’d lived in the Sunshine State, and I’d traveled it pretty extensively.

  I twisted up my face in thought.

  “Cal… i… for…” I sounded out each syllable slowly. When he gave me the slightest scowl, I changed gears. “Hawaii!”

  “Bingo. Damn, you’re good,” he said, leaning back so a pair of moms and one of their teenage daughters passed him to enter the shop. They all gave him overly friendly “thank yous” as they paraded past, and made no secret they were checking him out, but he never once glanced at them, keeping his gaze on me.

  “The least they could do is tip the doorman,” I observed.

  “I know, right?” he responded.

  “Most Grammy wins ever,” I demanded.

  He looked surprised. “I thought I was the one asking the questions.”

  “What fun is that?” I countered.

  “Fun for me,” he grinned. “But I’ll play. Most Grammys? Hmm. Has to be… Quincy Jones?”

  “Nope,” I replied. “But he’s tied for second.”

  “Half a point?”

  “Zero points!” I answered.

  More people stepped between us to enter the store.

  “We ought to clear this door before the fire marshal shows up,” he suggested.

  “Probably so.”

  It was then that I noticed what his faded purple t-shirt said. “Capital University Women’s Basketball Back 2 Back National Champions 1994 & 1995.”

  Capital University tickled something in my brain, but I couldn’t place it right away. I dealt with transfers and applications every day and corresponded with other universities, but Capital wasn’t in my usual circle.

  I thanked him as he held the door and I passed below his outstretched arm.

  “John Williams,” he said while standing behind me waiting in line.

  I shook my head.

&
nbsp; “Stevie Wonder.”

  “Nope,” I said and stifled a laugh. It was fun stumping the trivia whiz.

  “Oh!” he declared. “I know this. Alison Kraus.”

  “Do you need a hint?” I asked with a playfully mocking tone.

  “I need a Frappuccino,” he answered.

  It was my turn to order, and the barista greeted me by name and asked if I wanted my usual, which I did— an iced green tea made with lemonade, biggest one they had.

  I pulled my debit card out and my new friend ordered over my shoulder and said he had both drinks.

  “When strangers buy you drinks, they sometimes come with… expectations,” I observed.

  “This is coffee,” he countered. “Or, tea, in your case, not a drink drink. And there are no expectations except that A, you enjoy it, and B, you tell me the answer to your Grammy question. Oh, and C, how you got the name Paris. Deal?”

  “And your name?” the barista asked over my shoulder.

  “Lucas,” he replied, and we slid out of the way of the next people in line as she tried to hand him his change.

  “Keep it,” he said. I could have sworn he handed her a fifty-dollar bill and judging by the pile of cash in her hand and the smile on her face, it must have been.

  “Thank you very much, Lucas,” she replied, and stuffed the money in the tip jar on the counter.

  Lucas. Lucas. Why was the name familiar? Then it hit me.

  Capital University. Lucas.

  Lucas Tucker.

  What the what?

  Lucas Tucker was white? And hot? And in Tallahassee?

  And buying me Starbucks?

  4

  We sat down at the end of the counter to await our drinks.

  I glanced over at him while he wasn’t looking. Could this really be Lucas Tucker? According to his transcripts, he’d attended two HBCUs and a college for Sioux Natives. Along with a whole bunch of “traditional” schools, sure, but the whole thing was just weird. If it was true. If it was really him.

  In six years working at FAMU, I could recall processing applications for four Caucasian students, and two of them were kickers for the football team, one from Finland. I recalled thinking he was in for a bit of culture shock at Florida A&M, but the last I checked, he was on course to graduate with honors and he was engaged to a cheerleader from Miami.

  “Well?” Lucas turned toward me and asked.

  “Okay, working backwards, since I don’t have my drink yet to enjoy it, I got my name from my mother.”

  “I might have guessed that much on my own,” he said with a grin. “Why Paris?”

  “She always wanted to travel and didn’t think she’d ever be able to afford it. Paris was the city she most wanted to visit, and in case she never got there, she’d at least have me. That’s the story as I know it. Why are you Lucas?”

  “I wish I knew,” he answered quietly. “If I ever met my parents, I’d love to ask them.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t-”

  He stopped me with a gentle hand on my forearm. “You couldn’t have known. And you certainly aren’t one of them, so you have nothing for which to apologize. Well, actually you do have one thing. I’m going to lose my shit if you don’t tell me the answer to your Grammy question.”

  The barista gave us our drinks and thanked Lucas again for his generosity.

  “You could always Google it,” I said, and took a sip of my drink. I gave an exaggerated “Ahh” with a smile when I swallowed. “Fantastic. Enjoying it very much.”

  He flashed a thumbs down. “Google? Perish the thought. That’s cheating.”

  He furrowed his brow in thought. “It isn’t Prince, although it ought to be…” He mused.

  “Correct and correct,” I said.

  He took a sip of his drink and held it up and tipped it toward the barista to acknowledge a job well done.

  “I’ll give you the answer if you answer another question first.”

  “Okay,” he said slowly, as if trying to figure out my angle.

  “Why Florida A&M?”

  He looked puzzled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re Lucas Tucker, right? From Alaska? Man of mystery, on a mission to attend a school in every state capital?”

  He looked around, as if maybe he’d been tricked somehow or was on a reality television show and there were hidden cameras he hadn’t spotted.

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” he finally said, after a long sip of his drink. “You seem to know everything about me and all I know about you is that you’re wicked smart, like green tea, are named Paris, and have extraordinarily beautiful eyes. Beyond that, you’re a blank to me. It’s unfair, no?”

  He set his elbow on the counter and leaned his head onto his hand as he looked at me expectantly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Wait, did he just call me smart and beautiful? Hold up. “I didn’t know who you were until just a minute ago. Or didn’t know you were somebody I already knew. Or, let me back up.” Get it together, Paris. It’s not like a guy has never given you an unsolicited compliment before.

  My self-talk was going four million miles a minute and my heart was racing to keep up.

  “I work at FAMU. Florida A&M,” I explained. “In the admissions office. I was handling your paperwork just this afternoon. You were the talk of the office, to be honest.”

  “But how did you find…” he began.

  “That’s just it,” I said. “I didn’t. I didn’t have any idea you were even in Florida, much less here. I was on my way home from work, to get dinner from the store, and on my way across to get my tea and I saw your trailer. People were stopping to look at it, and it’s pretty eye-catching, you must know, so I came over to see it, too. Then outside, at the door, we started chatting, right? I didn’t know your name.

  “When you told her your name,” I aimed the straw of my cup at the barista. “I put two and two together. Don’t see many Capital University shirts in Tallahassee.”

  He looked down at his shirt and laughed. “That’s the weirdest story I’ve ever heard, but it’s too bizarre to be made up.”

  He extended his arm. “I’m Lucas Tucker,” he said as I shook his hand.

  “Paris Simmons,” I replied.

  “Mucho gusto, Paris,” he said, telling me in Spanish that it was nice to meet me.

  “Igualmente,” I replied. “Likewise.”

  “You know, with all the semesters of first-year Spanish I’ve taken, you’d think I’d retain more of it than I do,” he said.

  “Not all of us have a gift for languages,” I said. “I don’t. At least not compared to my friend Sweet. I’ve lost track of how many languages she speaks. A dozen, maybe?”

  “You have a friend named ‘Sweet’?” he asked.

  “Tyesha is her real first name, but she’s from D.C. and when I first met her in college, she introduced herself as “Sweet T from D.C.” I explained. “It got shortened to just Sweet before long, and that’s all I’ve ever known her as. If somebody called her Tyesha I’d have to think for a minute before I knew they were talking about her.”

  “What college?” Lucas asked.

  “One you’ll never get into!” I teased.

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said. “I can be pretty persuasive.”

  “Well, you’d need gender-reassignment surgery first, and I’m not sure you’re that committed. Or at least I hope you wouldn’t be, but, forgive me, because what a waste that would be.”

  As soon as I said it, I regretted it. It was way too flirty.

  Nice job, Paris.

  “What I mean is-”

  His laughter cut me off. “No worries, Paris. I look terrible in a dress.”

  He composed himself. “Was it Spellman?”

  “No, Palmetto Women’s College.”

  “Well see, there you go. That’s in Charleston, not Columbia, so it wouldn’t fit my criteria anyway.”

  I was a bit surprised he knew PWC. Most women, eve
n women of color, didn’t know PWC right off the bat, unless they were from South Carolina or Georgia.

  “Georg Solti,” I said. “Hungarian composer. 31 Grammys.”

  “Indeed!” Lucas said, and slapped the counter. “I knew that. Dang.”

  “But I’m impressed that you knew PWC,” I said. “It’s pretty obscure, in the grand scheme of things.”

  “You may not have guessed it, but I’m a bit of a nerd,” Lucas confessed.

  “No!” I said, feigning shock and horror.

  “Guilty,” he replied, holding his hand up. “And one of the things I am a super-nerd about are colleges and universities. Not sure why, exactly. Maybe it was a book at the library.”

  “Must have been quite a book to set you on this path.”

  “It was one of those generic ‘Guide to American Colleges and Universities’ type of books. An old edition. Probably donated in a box of books left over from an estate or something.”

  It was my turn to look puzzled.

  “I grew up in a group home. In the old days it would have been called an orphanage, I guess, right? But it was called a group home back there in Juneau. I had a few foster families, but none that ever worked out. In the group home we had a small library, mostly donated stuff, and I read it all. But I got kind of obsessed with that college guide. I’m probably the only person who ever read one of those things cover to cover, like it was a novel.”

  I nodded. I was extremely familiar with those books, and picturing a young Lucas painstakingly reading each page was both sad and hilarious.

  “I never left Juneau. I’d never been anywhere. So, books, that book specifically, were my way out. And the internet, of course, but we all shared one slow desktop, so it wasn’t like I could surf to my heart’s content.

  “When I turned eighteen, I had to leave the group home, so I did odd jobs and stuff, took a few classes at the local community college that I could afford, but I was pretty much stuck dreaming. But I switched from the pitiful little library at home to being able to go to real libraries whenever I wanted, and eventually I saved up for a laptop, and here I am.”

  It was an inspiring, romantic story, but it didn’t explain the truck and trailer outside, the endless travel, all the tuition.