~ * * ~
After the whole Craig/Dance fiasco the year before, Felicia started picking me up for school and, as I waited for her the morning of our first day back, I made a conscious decision not to mention college again unless she did. I had no wish to alienate her.
Sighing in resignation as I watched Felicia stop in front of our house, I grabbed my stuff and headed reluctantly down the stairs.
Every time I saw Felicia pulling up to the curb in her shiny red Mini, I couldn’t help but wish she’d picked a different…I would say car, but I wasn’t sure that tiny thing would qualify.
Although I would have rather ridden to school in Mom’s car, she always left too early for me to be able to get in my run, breakfast, and a shower. Her favorite part of the day was before the students arrived. I could understand that.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to ride with Felicia, I did; I just didn’t appreciate her preferred mode of transportation. Although Felicia loved that car, and it got great gas mileage, it just wasn’t built to house a person of my…altitude, or attitude for that matter. I always felt like a little cockroach about to be smushed whenever I rode in it. Of course, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I kept those paranoid fantasies to myself.
“Hey,” I greeted Felicia, as I folded myself into the tiny car.
“Hey yourself.”
“Oh, before I forget to tell you, even though my birthday is Thursday, we won’t have the birthday bash until Saturday. That way Mark can come. Will you be able to make it to lunch on Saturday? Mom’s going all out for the meal. It’s been a long time since she…well, anyway, she’s a great cook,” I finished lamely.
Although every day seemed to get a tiny bit easier, it was still so hard not to think about…things. I needed to be under control, to make it through school every day without constantly losing it, which meant avoiding certain topics. Felicia understood.
“Of course I’ll be there. What time?”
“We’ll eat at noon,” I replied gratefully, “that’ll give Mark time to get here.”
“He seems nice,” Felicia offered hesitantly, “I was sort of expecting someone more…well, stuck on himself from the way you described him.”
“I told you, he just doesn’t like to hurt anybody’s feelings,” I reminded her reproachfully, “He is too good-looking for his own good.” Then added, “And he would be genuinely shocked to hear me say that.” Unlike some guys, he never thought about things like that. “I think any girl would be lucky to have him. I just hope he ends up picking someone I like. Otherwise that would be the pits.”
“It must be nice to have an older brother,” Felicia sighed wistfully.
I understood her disappointment; she was an only child.
“It is,” I admitted laughingly, “most of the time.”
“So what is Mark planning to do after he graduates next semester?” Felicia asked in a matter-of-fact voice.
“He’s hoping to get an entry level job in an architectural firm there in the Austin area so he can make enough money to start working on his Master’s degree,” I replied excitedly. “That’s one of the reasons I’m so psyched about UT. We will finally be living in the same town again. How cool is that?”
“Nice,” Felicia commented speculatively, “very nice.”
I was a bit curious about her tone of voice, but since we had arrived at school, I didn’t pursue it.
By the end of the first day, Felicia and I both agreed that being a senior was definitely a step up. We had already been able to pre-register for our classes, and ended up having three periods together: Government/Economics, third-year Spanish, plus one free period we could use for studying. We even had the same lunch.
The fact that I was on the Cross Country and Track teams, as well as a different graduation plan, by definition, meant that the rest of our classes had to be different, but we were happy with our schedules.
On the way home from school, Felicia surprised me by bringing up the college thing herself.
“Um…if I were to…uh…want to apply to UT, would you help me fill out the…you know…application?” she seemed to be having trouble getting the question out.
“Are you crazy?” I practically screeched at her. “Try and stop me!”
I thought my heart would leave my chest…it was pounding so hard. That meant I could keep my best friend!
“Thanks, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind.”
I knew I had the biggest, goofiest smile of all time on my face, but I couldn’t help it. She had just made my day, my year, my decade. By the time we got to my house, I had pulled myself together enough to speak coherently again.
“You won’t regret it,” I swore to her, “I promise I will help you with your classes and everything.”
“I’m counting on that,” she replied a little nervously, “I think I might try that interior designer thing. Sounds like fun.”
“The whole thing will be fun…now,” I replied with confidence. “You’ll see. We’ll have the best time, and anything we don’t know, we can ask Mark.”
“I’m counting on that, too,” Felicia repeated with a huge smile on her face.
That was more like.