By the end of the class, I’m taxed from both the novel experience and Tristan’s incessant self-monologue. In one short hour I’ve become proficient in all things Tristan, his birth name being just the tip of the French iceberg. I now know he has three sisters, all of which are enrolled in fashion school. I know he’s bred hamsters for the last three years as a part of his horticulture and animals club which sounds a lot like 4-H.
By the time our final class of the day rolls around, Digital Studios, I’m exhausted both emotionally and physically.
I think my brain actually hurts, I sign as we take seats near the front. It’s a small class with only about twenty students, something far more my style compared to the stadium seating lecture halls we’ve endured. English 101 already has me cagey because I’m terrified of writing papers.
You’re just overwhelmed. Tristan pats me on the knee, and instinctively I pull my legs in. Sorry.
No, it’s fine. I’m just jumpy today. I sort of got off to a rocky start when I narrowly escaped my true destiny as road kill, but I leave that part out. That boy with the calming marble eyes comes back to me. I lean into my seat and sigh into the memory. His orange scented cologne still clings faintly to my sweater as I push my nose into my shoulder.
A tall girl wearing an expensive leather jacket and buttery boots that creep up her inky denim jeans saunters in. She’s beautiful, like cover model perfection with bouncy blonde curls, patriotic red lips that glide over her paper-white smile. Instinctively my stomach turns. That’s the kind of girl the boy with the marbled eyes would go for—the kind he most likely belongs with. Kaya once broke dating down into leagues, and, plain and simple, I’m not even on his playing field—but Ms. Red, White, and Blue Jeans is by a landslide. The girl next to her looks equally gorgeous with darker hair and eyes—the same I’ve-got-the-world-by-my-father’s-Master Card smile. I’ve noticed girls like that travel in packs around campus. Back at Quincy there weren’t really any social cliques or barriers besides the obvious, and when we were together we hardly noticed that one.
Ms. America One and Ms. America Two scoot into our row and both Tristan and I pull our legs in to accommodate them. One of them holds the scent of an overbearing perfume about as subtle as frankincense and myrrh. I make a face at Tristan, but he seems momentarily entranced by the volleyballs expanding from their sweaters. Figures. It’s a man’s world until a D cup shows up and debilitates the masses.
He doesn’t hesitate starting up a conversation with the tall one.
“She’s deaf.” I see his lips form the words, and my face floods with heat. I am deaf, but I’m also allergic to labels. Kaya wears her hearing loss like a badge, but I’m not so eager to flaunt the stones God placed in my ears to the rest of the world.
The girls take their seats before he leans in and signs. They asked how we were enjoying our first day.
How very nice of them. I gesticulate a little to get my sarcastic edge across. Next time just tap me on the arm, and I’ll know to pay better attention. It’s not like I want to keep the fact I can’t hear a secret, but I like to be a part of things. Sorry if I’m coming across snippy. I’m tired and hungry and all too ready to crash on that squeaky twin mattress back at the dorm.
Tristan breaks out with a relaxed smile. I apologize. I promise I’ll be more considerate. He examines me with a bit more scrutiny than I’m used to. You don’t have to be embarrassed about anything, Annie. You’re a sweet soul. Everyone will pick up on that. Plus you’re beautiful. Life always gives a pass to girls like you. He gives a quiet smile and turns to the front.
A pass, huh? Then why does today feel like one giant hurdle?
Professor O’Leary strides in. A tired looking man that has hands the size of baseball mitts. He tries his best to speak a little slower than usual and makes it a point to stand directly in front of me when delivering the lecture. It’s both embarrassing and unnecessary, but I appreciate his effort.
Tristan signs as he speaks.
“I want each of you to put together a portfolio on campus life through your unique eyes. The final will consist of a montage of photos that you feel best express your Whitney Briggs experience along with an oral report in which you relay what the photographs mean to you and how your view of life may or may not be altered through photography. I’m looking for artistry, impeccable imagery, and creativity. Pull at my heartstrings. Make me see you as a soul, not just a body that occupies a chair twice a week. Although a photograph captures a world trapped in silence—nothing conveys emotion louder than stunning imagery.”
It’s true. And as cliché as it sounds, a picture can convey something more meaningful than a thousand well-spoken words. It’s why I love to shoot the landscape, animals—people.
The class draws to a close as the professor examines our equipment. He gives my camera a brief nod of approval, but it’s hard to miss the fact that other students have far more impressive technology at their disposal.
Tristan and I stand to leave just as the beauty contestants make a spectacle of themselves to him—each struggling to thrust their chest a little closer to the poor guy’s face. We get it. You’re big, beautiful, and breasty. I sneer at them, but no one is paying any particular attention to me.
The tall one picks up Tristan’s hand with her freshly manicured fingers, speaking a mile a minute, flipping her blonde hair around like she’s trying to swat a fly. Her buddy scowls my way before pressing her chest toward Tristan, lest she forget the task at hand. It begs the question is chest-bumping some new mating ritual I’ve been in the dark about all these years? Either that or they don’t take kindly to other women hovering near their prey.
Tristan watches mesmerized as they swing their hips right out the door. His mouth drops open. Clearly he runs the risk of drooling all over his shoes.
They said to tell you hi. He stares vacantly in their wake while signing.
I’m right here, Tristan. They could have told me that to my face.
They’re not used to you yet.
Used to me? That’s okay, I laugh softly to myself. It’s pretty clear you’re all they want to get used to. Tristan is a good-looking Muppet if I don’t say so myself. I’m sure there will be a lot of beautiful girls vying for his attention over the next few years. I gauge him for a moment, studying the contours of his face, daring my stomach to clench the way it did this morning, but it declines the offer.
His cheeks stain a blotchy purple. The tall one is Johanna. The shorter girl has a hard Jersey accent. Her name is Courtney. They’re rushing for Alpha Chi. They wanted to know if you’re interested.
I roll my eyes. That’s classic—but nice of them. Next time they’re around, I’ll let you decline the offer for me. I’m not particularly annoyed with them. I realize it takes a little more effort for people to have a conversation with me. I don’t really blame those girls for asking him to relay a message.
We head out to go our separate ways.
See you tomorrow, I sign, ready to speed to my dorm. There’s nothing more I want than a nice, hot shower—my pillow has managed to seduce me sight unseen. I think I’ll blow off the bar tonight. God knows I’ve had enough action for one day. Any more stimulation and my head might actually pop off, that is if I don’t manage to get myself flattened by an errant semi in the meantime.
Tristan stuffs his hands in his pockets and sways back on his heels, examining me with an uncomfortable gaze.
“Hey, Annie?” I read his lips easily, and I’m thankful he’s speaking at a normal speed—that he’s speaking to me in general. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
* * *
“So what did you say?” Marley spins into her reflection and runs her fingers through her flaxen curls one last time. She’s spent the last half hour wielding a gold-barreled curling iron with a hairstyling vengeance. She’s sprucing herself up at a manic pace, getting ready to head out to the Black Bear in just a few minutes. She’s begging me to go, but I keep refusing. The way my day is headed, I thi
nk it’s best to shut my eyes and mercifully put this twenty-four hour interval to an end.
I cringe at what came next. Well… I show her my phone. Marley doesn’t sign, but I can read her lips just as good as she can read the notes from my phone most of the time. I may have said yes.
Her pouty pink mouth falls open. “You lied?” Marley is your typical beautiful blonde with big ocean blue eyes that rival my own. And, unlike Johanna and Courtney, Marley has treated me just like anybody else right from the beginning. Maybe that’s why I felt so close to her from the get go. Marley has been a life raft to me ever since move-in day. She’s acclimated well to life at Whitney, so much so that she already has her own section in the school newspaper both the online version and the tree-slaughtering one. Her column, Sex and the Coed, has raised a few brows on campus, but, for the most part, she’s engrossed the masses. She said she needed a catchy title to get everyone’s attention. Her articles are mostly about fashion with the odd sex tips thrown in for good measure. Pairing the perfect jeans with a blowjob seems strange to me, but I grew up under a rock compared to everyone else, so I just go with it.
I type as fast as I can. I guess I did lie. But, I swear, I didn’t mean to. My head was just all over the place today. Something happened this morning that sort of spooked me, and it was all downhill from there. I show her my phone.
“What happened?” Her concern grows as she leans in. The light catches her sticky gloss, and her lips shimmer like a tiny galaxy of stars.
I may have got in the way of a moving vehicle. I cringe.
“Annie!” Her hand flattens over her chest. “I’m sorry, I should have been there for you.” She pulls me into a hug and rambles out a warm stream of words right into my shoulder before pulling back. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go out that door alone this morning.”
It’s fine, really. Baya and Bryson tried to walk me to class. I close my eyes a moment envisioning what my brothers would do if they knew about my brush with a chrome fender followed by my brush with all out lust for the boy who saved me. Please don’t say anything. I thought my biggest challenge would be bikes and skateboards. I had no clue a freeway ran through campus.
She plucks the phone from my hand and pounds out a note.
It’s rare, but I’ve seen cars and trucks. Be careful. Her lips twist. I won’t tell but only under one circumstance.
I shrug in lieu of a written response. Marley and I are working out the kinks in our communication barrier quicker than I thought possible. In a few short weeks, Marley has managed to feel like the Whitney Briggs version of Kaya—not that Kaya could ever be replaced, just multiplied in a very sweet manner.
“Come to the Black Bear.” She bites down on her lower lip, a devious smile hedges up the sides. “Or when your brothers ask why you didn’t show, I might just have to spill everything.”
* * *
The Black Bear Saloon vibrates with an energy all of its own. I’ve been to a couple of parties with Marley, mostly on “the row” where the sororities and fraternities line the streets. The party scene seemed like a fun idea in theory, but it’s near impossible to read anybody’s lips in dim lighting, and I felt bad for Marley every time she tries to transcribe a conversation for me. I agreed to come to the Black Bear but only if she agreed to hang out with some of her other friends while I took pictures. I figure what better time to start cataloging my collegiate experience than tonight. Besides, I’ve been meaning to take a few cute couple shots of Baya and Bryson, and of my brother, Holt, and his fiancé, Izzy. Holt is Bryson’s fraternal twin, but only the discerning eye can tell them apart.
I spot Izzy by the bar tying back her long, dark hair. She and Holt are newly engaged. She’s the one who introduced me to Marley. Izzy and Marley’s sister Jemma, have been best friends for years. Izzy actually used to teach my dance class when I was a kid. She always made sure that I never missed a beat. She taught me to count my way through the numbers and put me in the middle of the action so that no matter where I turned I could pick up on visual cues from the other girls. I couldn’t have chosen a nicer person for my brother. He let the family know last summer that the reason he never went to college was because he felt like he caused my parents’ divorce. It was a huge mess. Obviously my father’s infidelity with a girl who had hardly turned eighteen at the time had more to do with it than he did. And by the time Holt realized he wasn’t the bomb that detonated over my parents’ marriage bed, he had already paid an emotional debt he never really owed. He and Izzy help run the bars in addition to her newly acquired dance studio, Electric Lights. Bryson is busy working on his masters and does most of the behind the desk stuff that the business requires. Ironically, I’m sort of a silent partner in both the business and in life.
The lights dim a bit, and a swarm of bodies move toward the stage as one of the bartenders, Cole, introduces the lineup for the night. I’ve known Cole for as long as I can remember. He and Bryson were roommates for years. The sign above his head reads 12 Deadly Sins, and judging by the anxious looks on the droves of girls lining the edge of the stage, these sinners have quite the female following. I take a seat near the wall and pull out my camera, taking pictures of the sea of platinum curls, the short skirts that seem far too impractical for the arctic drop in temperature we’re experiencing outside. Gawking at their long, bare legs through my lens has me feeling a bit pervish, so I sneak in a picture of Cole heading off stage, kissing his girlfriend, Roxy. I love Roxy. She’s as straight to the chase as one can get. It’s hard to get her to smile, but she’s pretty nice to me overall. She’s been known to bring cupcakes to the bar at least once a week during staff meetings, and they’re fabulous in a zillion calories sort of way. Once I gain my freshman fifteen, I’ll know who to point the finger at.
The band takes the stage, and the bodies jump up and down—boobs are jostled right out of their safety nets as the girls in front go wild, thrashing their fists in the air, swinging their hips to the non-existent music. I know it hasn’t started yet because at a venue like this the vibrations tend to ride through my body. The energy in the bar skyrockets as the girls work themselves in a head thrashing frenzy. I take a seat up on the table to get a better look as the music gets under way. The baritone of the bass pulsates through my chest. I lean straight against the wall and feel the rhythm of the music jump up and down my vertebrae like a xylophone. This is one of the things I know for a fact I’m missing out on in life—music. I close my eyes a moment and try to imagine what it must sound like. My parents outfitted me with heavy duty hearing aids when I was a kid, and I still have them, but they made the world scary like what I’d imagine demons sound like, heavy, tired moans that I’m positive I want no part in, so I never wear them. Instead I feel the vibration that life has to offer. And on occasions like this, I ache to know what it must feel like to hear something so fierce and majestic. Back at Quincy we used to turn the speakers up as loud as possible and feel the top ten iTunes hits vibrate through the room. I guess that was our way of experiencing what seems to have everyone else our age so mesmerized all the time.
A light tap emits over my leg, and I open my eyes to find Laney and Baya smiling at me.
Laney waves. “Can I get you anything?” She over annunciates the words.
I shake my head and point to the stage. My eyes connect with the lead singer, and my mouth opens as if I’m about to say something, but really it’s from sheer surprise.
It’s him. It’s the gorgeous boy with marbled eyes who saved me from acting out a very real piece of performance art today—the red asphalt rendition.
He elongates a note and smiles right at me. My stomach fills with a fire that expands right up my chest. There it is again, that physiological response that makes every cell in my body sit up and pay attention.
Baya and Laney don’t let the moment go unnoticed.
Baya jots something down on her notepad. Cute isn’t he?
I brush her off with a shy smile, but I can feel my cheeks burn
ing right through my denial—sirening out a, hell yes! without my approval.
“Let me get you a soda,” Laney offers. “You want some food?” She looks as if she might be mouthing the words. I can usually tell, but I never mind.
I shake my head again, but she’s saying something and nodding, and I’m afraid she’ll be back with a steak before I know it. Sometimes people go out of their way for me, and Laney has always been like that.
Baya flashes her notepad at me again, Maybe after his set you can talk to him. She bounces on her heels at the thought.
“No way,” I mouth. I type out a quick text. I’ve got enough on my plate this semester. I don’t need to add desperate to the equation. I went on a few dates back at Quincy—all with boys in my class, mostly dances, but there wasn’t a real spark. Dating just seems like a waste of time unless you feel that spark.
Baya makes a face as she glances back at the lead singer. “I don’t know…” She wrinkles her nose as she scribbles out another note. Something tells me that boy knows how to start a lot more than a spark. Maybe you’re right, you’d better stay away. He looks capable of burning down the whole damn building if you know what I mean. She gives a quick wink before disappearing into the crowd.
I lean and press my back hard to the cold wall as the music, the vibration of that beautiful man’s voice, streams through my veins like a long anticipated breeze on a sweltering midnight. The cords in his neck distend as he belts out the lyrics, and in my heart the silence is exchanged for a rhythmic code to the universe. He’s wearing a dull green T-shirt with a faded image of a flag on it, but it’s his muscles, the hard contours of his body, that beg my eyes to stay. He’s muscular but not overly so. He has an overt charisma and charm about him that explains the estrogen bomb going off at his feet as the girls clamor to touch the hem of his jeans like he’s Jesus.
The night goes on with my brothers taking turns checking in on me. Laney brings me a steady order of nachos even though I’ve hardly touched the first. Cheese from a can just isn’t my thing, but I don’t have the heart to tell her. Marley and a few of the girls from our dorm have migrated over, and I’ve gladly shared the mother load with anyone who wants it.