by Andrea Cale
“Oh no, you need to get yourself dressed. Do you know where we’re going?” Amie’s nasal honk was louder and more piercing than the telephone ring that had shaken Caroline from comfort.
“What?”
“There’s a party with the football team off campus. I’m on my way to pick you up, so hurry.”
Amie let club music blare through the phone like an exclamation point before hanging up.
Incidents such as this seemed to follow Caroline through life. The more forceful girls who tended to burn bridges as frequently as they showered often sank their fangs into her. Caroline stared at the dead phone and weighed calling back her persuasive teammate to decline the invitation. She also considered going to a co-ed party like seemingly everyone else in her dorm. Before she could give herself time to change her mind, the beautiful girl decisively earmarked her page, snapped the text shut, and began preparing for an unfamiliar event.
She had witnessed her roommate’s going-out ritual a dozen times and started using it as a guide. The first step involved opening their mini fridge and clicking open a can of cheap beer, a beverage left in a case that had been smuggled into the underage dorm.
As Caroline slid the heavy wooden door of her clothes closet over, she took a few long sips. Drinking came a little too easily for her even though she rarely partook. The ability was apparently passed down from her mother, but Caroline had the strong determination of her father. She wouldn’t let partying develop into a habit. She let the liquid slip down her throat before grimacing at the sight of her near-empty closet.
With minutes slipping by and nothing to wear, Caroline ventured to her roommate’s side of the room. Caroline’s bed was less than ten feet away, yet she instantly felt as though she were in a foreign land. It was a crossover she never would’ve made if she hadn’t been invited on move-in day to “borrow any clothes anytime.”
“If you ever want to wear anything, feel free,” her roommate had said when the girls unpacked their things.
As Caroline looked into a closet nearly identical to her own, but with completely different contents, she gently fingered the tags that still hung on her roommate’s stylish pants and piles of cashmere sweaters folded neatly on their shelves. She timidly helped herself to a couple of basics—a pair of designer jeans and a white top with a neckline Caroline thought would complement her beloved locket. She drew her fiery hair in a ponytail and sat at her desk to apply a modest amount of foundation, mascara, lip gloss, and rosewater spray, her late mother’s bargain secret weapon for making her skin glow like mother-of-pearl. In little time, she looked gorgeous.
Caroline inspected herself through her roommate’s full-length mirror and felt similar to the way her father had on the afternoon he walked home from his first day of work at Harper Manufacturing. The clothes were the least colorful picks from her roommate’s closet, but the fit, the soft texture against her skin, and the smell of life from a closet filled with new garments made Caroline feel luxurious and important. She smiled, realizing she looked like her mother. It wasn’t the clothes. It was the confidence.
As she tugged at her necklace with a rare feeling of excitement, Caroline’s cell phone buzzed and danced across her desk. She pulled her calf-length boots over the jeans and hustled out of the dormitory without even checking to see whether it was indeed Amie’s signal. She didn’t get many calls or texts or Facebook requests. To others, she seemed untouchable. To her, she was eternally tarnished and bruised.
“You’re coming?!” Amie questioned dramatically as Caroline opened the passenger door of her teammate’s car.
“You drive a mean bargain,” said the old soul of a girl. “What’s your major, anyway? I feel like we don’t get enough opportunity to talk much in practice.”
“Ah, I’m undecided,” said Amie, a striking sophomore with glasses that perfectly matched the color of her dark hair. “I just want to live in the moment now, you know?”
As the unlikely pair traveled to the party, Caroline felt troubled over how they’d return. She had never ventured out before with Amie—or really anyone at Boston—yet she predicted the lively girl would be drinking. Caroline knew she wouldn’t let herself make the same fateful mistake as her mother. She tugged at her necklace in an attempt to lessen her worries, while Amie lit a cigarette, turned up the radio, and screamed along to the popular Black Eyed Peas. Amie’s energy was contagious. Caroline stifled a cough from the secondhand smoke and joined her in the chorus with a bobbing head and a smile.
The music helped Caroline loosen up a bit, but before she could feel completely ready, the girls found themselves entering a crowded apartment. Classic rock blared and chatter descended to whispers as Caroline intrigued all the partiers. The turning heads and lack of space began suffocating her. The football players appeared twice the size as they did on the field. And then there were the girls filling in the cracks around the athletes in matching furry boots, leggings, fleece jackets, and bra strap headbands. Caroline felt different. She wanted to be back at her dormitory, hidden under the comfort of her bed covers.
Amie, on the other hand, soaked in every second of their attention.
“The party can begin, everyone!” she shouted.
“Let’s get a drink,” both girls said to each other for different reasons.
For Caroline, one beer led to another and another and another, and before she knew it, Amie had gone to get them a fifth round, leaving Caroline alone to lean on her more effective crutch—dancing. As though on cue, Jane’s Addiction’s “Classic Girl” began to play. The girl with the classic name and the unwanted past closed her eyes in a way that only she could coolly pull off and got lost in the movement. Others’ eyes once again fixed on her. She didn’t notice them. She didn’t notice the smell of spilled beer at her feet or the stickiness under her favorite boots. More than the alcohol, dancing helped her forget about her uncomfortable surroundings. It even made her forget her troubles. She heard only the guitar and the lyrics until Amie shook her out of her trance by digging a pair of fingernails into her forearm.
“Ouch. Um, Amie? Hi?”
“He’s looking at you,” Amie said without letting go.
Caroline laughed and resisted looking around. She was just starting to enjoy the party.
“Who?”
“Obviously, I could only be talking about one person.”
“Who?”
“You’re joking, right?”
Caroline shook her head.
“You’re serious! You don’t know?” Amie said before adjusting her glasses and moving her lips as little as possible. “It’s Devin Madison. Devin’s looking at you.”
Caroline laughed again. Her new friend looked like a bad ventriloquist.
“What does he look like?”
“Oh, come on!” Amie said with growing exasperation. “You are telling me that a girl on the sidelines of every game so far this year doesn’t know by now what the team’s star quarterback looks like? Every human being in the city of Boston, no, Suffolk County, no, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, knows what Devin Madison looks like. The whole country will know once we make it to a major bowl game. The guy will be in the running for the Heisman, for crying out loud.”
The status of others wasn’t something that intrigued Caroline, even though she was constantly wishing she could change her own identity.
“I’m not kidding,” Caroline said with a grin. “If he had his jersey on with the big number four then I would know, but when do I ever see him off the field? Oh, come on, Amie. Let’s. Just. Dance!”
“Fine, but before you decide to ignore the most gorgeous specimen on the planet, maybe you should at least see what you’re missing. Check four o’clock.”
Caroline finally looked, and sure enough, there was a guy—an extraordinarily handsome guy—staring at her. She let a smile escape her sweet face, not knowing that for the second time in one night, someone would attempt to sink fangs into her.
CHAPTER 16
&nb
sp; DEVIN
The Gifted One
So what all went down last night with the hottie?”
Devin and his go-to receiver had begun practicing five- and ten-yard out routes in case they found themselves in need of quick yardage and an opportunity to get out of bounds to stop the clock during either of their remaining games of a so-far perfect season.
“Which hottie?” the quarterback asked even though his smile revealed that he knew precisely which girl his teammate was referencing.
The receiver planted his foot to fake right before quickly running left and catching the ball easily. Instead of tossing it back to Devin to start the drill over, the receiver walked it in so he could have another word.
“Fine, I’ll humor you, Dev. I’m talking about the freshman cheerleader who we all seem pretty dang invisible to—even you, man. Until last night.”
In an effort to sidestep wrath from the offensive coordinator who was overseeing practice, the receiver quickly handed the ball back to the golden boy before positioning himself to start the play over again.
Devin, however, had a different idea.
“Coach,” he called to the offensive coordinator. “Can we take just a five-minute water break to talk over our timing?”
The excuse made little sense, as their timing was nearly perfect, but Devin was able to get away with far more than anyone else on the team. Devin asking for five minutes in this particular stadium was like Bono asking the stage crew of U2 for permission to take a bathroom break. Devin Madison had single-handedly led the team to an undefeated season so far, with more than three thousand passing yards already behind him. With only two games left in the regular season against teams Devin already had a significant hand in beating, a trip to the Orange Bowl—Devin’s family’s dream bowl—was in his sights.
Taking a break from it all to talk about a girl during practice seemed irresponsible, but Caroline wasn’t just any girl, and doing whatever Devin wanted whenever he wanted was a perk to which the quarterback had grown accustomed.
Devin took a seat on the sideline and used a fresh, plush towel to dab the sweat from his face. His teammates were familiar with his quirky and pompous ways. But when they took the field, there wasn’t a Falcon on the University of Boston team who wanted another quarterback at the helm. When a play didn’t work straightaway, Devin scrambled to make yardage out of nothing. He had the guts to run for the first down if no one was open. To his coaches’ dismay, he ran with his shoulders driving forward instead of sliding safely to the ground. If his defense failed during an opposition’s drive, he’d change the momentum quickly on offense. His passes were precise. He never threw them too high, keeping his receivers as safe as possible. Most importantly, Devin won games.
“What can I say, the girl found me irresistible,” Devin said.
For the first time in his college career, a girl intrigued him. Thinking about her made him happy. Reliving the previous night’s events made him feel uncomfortably sensitive and vulnerable.
Devin didn’t realize that evening—or even on this day later—that it wasn’t his football hero status that got her. It was his smile that had disarmed her. When he wanted to be, Devin was irresistibly charming. The quarterback found himself wanting to replay every moment they had together that evening.
“Let me introduce you to my future girlfriend,” Devin had said about Caroline to anyone in his vicinity at the party, even when it was only five minutes from the moment the pair had first locked eyes. It was a line that his teammates heard him say at every social event or bar outing to any beautiful girl, but his buddies always played along as though they were hearing it for the first time. They were his wingmen on and off the field.
“Gimme a break,” Caroline had said a number of times in weak protest, but her rosy cheeks gave away her pleasure. The color had given Devin the green light he needed to press harder.
“So how does it feel to be suddenly dating the most popular guy on campus,” he had teased above the party music and chatter.
“You haven’t even told me your name and you are introducing yourself instead as the most popular guy on campus and now my boyfriend?” Caroline never went out of her way to be in a relationship. It was a quality that earned her the label of “player” on the campus despite others’ lack of facts to substantiate that classification.
“Stop laughing,” she had continued with a grin. “What? You don’t believe me?”
“Huh?”
“Ask Amie,” Caroline teased. “She told me you were here tonight, and I had to do a little research to find out which one you were.”
“Huh?”
Devin had looked at her with serious eyes. He wasn’t offended by the comment—he had barely even registered it. Caroline’s perfect freckles were distracting him. Her skin was an unusual color he’d never seen. He’d never laid eyes on anyone like her, and he’d seen many girls. Without thinking, he had grabbed a strand of her hair with his soon-to-be million-dollar fingers and tucked it gently behind her ear.
“Are we going to get married?” he had asked.
“What?”
A drunken girl who longed to be part of a sorority, even though the University of Boston didn’t offer Greek life, had approached in the midst of Devin and Caroline’s conversation. Instead of Delta Delta Delta, Alpha Phi, or Kappa Kappa Gamma, the young lady belonged to a growing sisterhood of DMA, Devin Madison Admirers. It was an unofficial group whose members, as Caroline would soon find, infiltrated every classroom, dormitory, dining hall, off-campus party, and bar scene. Even Caroline’s roommate was part of the contingent of young ladies, whose quiet crushes came to life after a few drinks, a Devin sighting on campus, or dining hall chatter.
The stranger, whose beer had given her courage, pressed her lips together to better spread her gloss. She shifted her silky chestnut hair so it hung over the front of one shoulder. She cut in front of Caroline and drunkenly clasped her hands around Devin’s neck. Caroline had immediately touched the clasp of her own necklace and scanned the apartment for Amie in hopes of a swift exit.
“Don’t leave me!” Devin had shouted over what felt like a sudden 120-pound addition to his body. He gently removed himself from the stranger as though the act were as everyday as brushing his golden hair, and pulled himself within a few inches of Caroline.
Over the course of the night, a few other girls had made their plays on the quarterback. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been enough for Caroline to stay away, but despite her good sense and caution, she couldn’t help flirting back. She wondered if this was what falling in love felt like. She knew she never felt anything like it before.
“You know, I would offer you, my new girlfriend, tickets to sit in the players’ reserved section for family and friends at the next game,” Devin had said.
“But, as a cheerleader and an athlete myself, I already have the best seat in the house,” Caroline had countered. She was used to guys’ lines. She was used to handling them too. She just wasn’t used to falling for them.
“As I was saying,” Devin had continued, “you pose a challenge for me. Instead of offering you tickets, I’m going to dedicate my next game to you. And with the bowl games approaching, this next one’s a big one.”
“You are such a weirdo,” Caroline had said, yet she smiled more than ever.
“So where do you live?” he had asked. “Can we hang out tonight?”
“I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I just want to watch a movie,” Devin had argued. “It’s 110 percent innocent.”
Caroline winced. She had a longstanding personal commitment of not trusting people who claimed anything was more than 100 percent. The girl, whose past made her cautious, also tended to feel leery of people who used the phrase “to be honest with you.”
“I’ve got class tomorrow,” she had said. “I really should get going.”
“I’ve got a class tomorrow too, to be honest with you,” Devin had countered. “I haven’t go
ne all semester, and look how I turned out. Look at all these people out and about on a school night. You’re fine to stay out late just once. Especially on the night you meet the love of your life. Just one movie.”
Caroline had laughed again. Devin’s charisma challenged her conservative ways. She wanted the night so badly to continue with him, but she quickly and emphatically decided to hold true to her rule of never going home on a first encounter with an unfamiliar guy—golden boy or no golden boy.
She spotted Amie near the keg and knew the girl was in no condition to drive.
“I’m here with a friend, and we’ve got to get going anyway. Before the T stops.”
Caroline never cared that her comments sounded unpopular. And even though she didn’t intend for the sayings to work to her advantage, they made her stand out to Devin and the long line of guys who had made their own plays for her over the years. They revealed her sweetness.
Caroline motioned for rescue by Amie, who had been watching their conversations jealously all night.
In his final seconds alone with Caroline, Devin had decided to throw one last Hail Mary.
“So, are we going to get married?”
“What?” she had asked, even though for the second time that night, she heard his proposal perfectly.
“Nothing,” he said, finally resolving to drop his status of being undefeated with girls. “Hey, can I call you?”
Amie had finally joined them after weaving through the crowd with impaired balance. She held out her hand to Devin.
“It’s Amie, emphasis on the ME,” she had said. “I’m a big fan.”
“And I’m a big fan of your friend here. Any friend of hers is a best friend of mine.”
Amie beamed.
Devin winked at Caroline.
He is too smooth, Caroline had thought. He’s dangerous.
“C’mon, Amie,” she had said. “We’ll pick up your car tomorrow. If we get a move on, we can catch the last train.”
“I’m going to walk you to the tracks,” Devin had said, revealing even to himself just how special Caroline must be to him. He never made the effort to open car doors or walk girls safely to their destinations. Until now, he had never felt the need.
