The Do-Over(7)
Author: Suzanne Park

 

CLINK! The vodka bottle continued rolling and slammed into the Jack Daniel’s. Hard.

 

“Cheers!” Red Hat Guy spoke with a hint of amusement in his voice.

 

My face grew hot as I separated the bottles with the family-size Ruffles bag as a buffer and let out a long, exasperated breath. I hadn’t even made it to campus yet and I was already stressed out of my mind about a simple store trip. And it didn’t help that my first encounter with a Carlthorpian was turning into a cringy sitcom disaster.

 

“Hope you enjoy your family-size Ruffles and onion dip.”

 

Excuse me? Was he being sarcastic? Or envious? It was hard to tell at first, but I remembered he’d made the same purchase. He’d made that comment in solidarity.

 

Red Hat Guy walked away with a plastic bag and a case of beer in each hand. “Thank you,” I muttered, watching him exit the store. His salt-and-pepper hair peeked from under his cap, suggesting he was older than he acted. He had an athletic build, put on visual display as his gray T-shirt pulled tightly across his broad shoulders while he hauled his heavy load. I pulled my attention back to my groceries and the cashier, then paid and walked out with two heavy brown bags.

 

I couldn’t shake a prickle of familiarity with the Red Hat Guy. Was it simply instant attraction? I did enjoy his gruff, “just woke up” voice . . . his confident stance as he swiped his credit card and bagged some items himself . . . and his ease in just being okay with his embarrassing purchases without the need to hide them with a tabloid magazine.

 

Still . . . there was something, a je ne sais quoi—

 

HONNNNKKKKK!

 

Mia’s head shot out of the passenger-side window of the U-Haul. She shouted, “Could you be any slower? What are you, ancient? Like thirty-two?” A pause. “Sorry, too far again? Or too soon?”

 

“Yep. Both.” I handed her the groceries and entered the driver’s side. She looked inside the bags as I turned on the ignition and restarted the navigation on my phone.

 

She squealed and dove into the Bugles bag. “I didn’t even ask for these! You know me so well!”

 

I smiled and put the truck into reverse. Thirty minutes left to go in this leg of the trip. Then the truly dreaded part of the journey would begin.

 

Or rebegin, depending how you looked at it.

 

I held out my hand and Mia handed me a fistful of salty corn cone treats. After shoving them into my mouth one by one, I pulled out of the parking lot and barreled down the newly paved, tree-lined street toward Carlthorpe’s campus.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

 

ROOMIE!”

 

The apartment door flung open and a young twenty-something with a swishy golden ponytail tackle-hugged me. She reminded me of a golden retriever I had dog-walked once. The puppy had the habit of enthusiastically smelling the crotches of anyone we passed on the sidewalk. Fingers crossed my new roommate wouldn’t share this trait.

 

She loosened her firm grip around my upper torso and took a step back. “You’re very huggable, you know that? Like an adorable poppin’ fresh Pillsbury Doughgirl, but the dough isn’t all over, it’s just in your boobs. They’re great though, your boobs, don’t get me wrong. I mean that in the best way possible, my nana had a nice set too. I’m Beth, but you can call me Roomie, Roomie!”

 

Holy shit. My roommate was a female Ted Lasso.

 

So. Much. Energy.

 

And yes, I had a size D chest, which came with all sorts of problems other than being huggable, such as unwanted leering stares, ill-fitting tops, and chronic back pain. But I’d never ever been told my boobs were poppin’ fresh. This was a first. And hopefully the last.

 

Mia peeked over my shoulder and whispered into my ear, “Do I need to book us an Airbnb? This could be a disaster. Just say the word and I’ll get it done.”

 

“It’s fine.” The truth was, I kind of liked her. Aside from Mia, I’d had some terrible roommates; the worst one was from freshman year. Erika, who always set her phone alarm at full blast at 5 A.M. to hit the gym, and then snoozed it a dozen times, and never actually made it to any of her spin classes. Ever.

 

Beth’s arms wildly gestured as she spoke about the walkability of the neighborhood, like her body created caffeine as a by-product. She was nice though, and that went a long way with me. I didn’t originally plan to have a roommate, but there were no studio apartments available to rent around campus, and one-bedrooms in town were scarce and in high demand. I’d missed the campus housing lottery, which was maybe a blessing—it was far better for me to be a senior living off campus and commuting instead.

 

Usually people who were in apartments were transfers or those who had been booted out of Res Life for noncompliance, and the thought crossed my mind when she made a distinction between those dorm kids and people off campus.

 

Mia had been subliminally following my train of thought about off-campus living, because she asked Beth point-blank, “So what’s your deal? Are you a transfer? Or did you get kicked out of housing?”

 

Beth didn’t change her puppy-dog eager demeanor one bit. “Well, it depends who you ask. If you ask me, I’d say there was a gross misunderstanding and I’m still waiting to clear my name with the Carlthorpe judicial committee. If you ask the director of Residential Life, she might say that someone fitting my description allegedly provided prescription drugs as an illegal study aid, but in reality a bunch of floormates broke into my room and stole an old bottle of my expired Adderall last year during finals. It was their word against mine. They were trustee families, if you catch my drift.”

 

I took her at her word and let it go. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m happy to meet you, Beth. This is Mia, she’s my good friend, a Carlthorpe alumna helping me move in. She graduated ten years ago.”

 

“Oh! You don’t look ten years older than us!” Beth maneuvered around me to hug-tackle Mia. “Any friend of Roomie’s is a friend of mine. Nice to meet you! Are you stayin’ long? I’m fixin’ to put a roasted chicken in the oven. Well, it’s not roasted now, it’s uncooked and fleshy pink at the moment, but give me forty-five minutes and I’ll fix that problem!”

 

My roomie squeezed Mia hard, and I exchanged glances with her over Beth’s head. Mia’s face was priceless. A dead-even mix of expressions: half amusement, half revulsion. “To be clear, I’m ten years older than you, not Lily. She’s my age, though she doesn’t look it. There’s the saying ‘Asian don’t raisin’ and she’s living proof of that. And although I do love chicken, I need to help my friend here unload her shit and then I gotta head back to the truck rental before they charge us an extra day. We’ve got plenty of boxes and containers to unload, like this one.”