should be our first agenda item?”
Jane began giggling. “How about finding a way to get Tammy out of the V-club…with Dallas?” Linda joined her giggling.
I had trouble falling asleep that night. My head still raced with thoughts of Dallas and the firmness of his grip on the railing. Dallas was a bit bumbling, but in a cute way—like a blue-eyed John Cusack. In my head, I re-wrote all of the 80s movies Kellen had made me watch with Dallas in Cusack’s roles and me as the female lead. There was Better Off Dead, where I transformed into a curly-haired French exchange student that Dallas finally realizes makes a much better girlfriend than the trampy Beth—replaced by LaVerne in my fantasy. One Crazy Summer , where Dallas was hopeless at basketball but still a romantic at heart, although I exchanged Demi Moore’s dreadlocks for a sleeker mane in my imagination. And of course, there was Say Anything. Tomorrow morning I’d be half-asleep when I would faintly hear Peter Gabriel echoing through Alpha. I’d stare at the ceiling, wondering who was playing music when Linda nudged me. I’d throw on a robe to see Dallas standing in the courtyard, serenading me with a more compact boombox than the one in the movie and forgoing Cusack’s trenchcoat for board shorts. All we needed was a classic 80’s car for background scenery and someone playing the saxophone for effect.
But what came next? What did college couples do? I wasn’t ready to visualize losing my V-status—so far in my fantasy we’d walked around campus multiple times holding hands and having romantic moments in the hammocks by the sea wall outside the marine biology building. I finally fell asleep right after we started fooling around wearing increasingly limited articles of clothing.
The storage door leading to the roof remained unlocked, and for the next week, we met there every night. Somehow being out on the roof gave us more of a free feeling, and instead of continuing the same conversations we’d have in our dorm room, we’d talk more about our hopes and dreams, past and present. “What made you decide to come to Eckhart?” Jane asked us.
“Marine biology,” Linda said with a sigh. “Which is pointless now that I’ve changed my major.”
“You changed it?”
“Yeah. We had a guest speaker come to my Heritage class, and they were telling us all the stuff you have to go through to be a dolphin trainer. Did you know most of them have psychology degrees?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You have to work, like, 60 hours a week, and it’s super competitive.”
“And they get paid dick,” Jane supplied.
“Yeah, that and they don’t even have psych as a major here. So I guess I’ll never get to work with dolphins.”
“Is that why you chose Eckhart, Tammy?” Jane asked.
“Not for dolphins. I hate those friggin’ things.”
“No, I mean for its marine biology program.”
I nodded. I’d always been a fish enthusiast. While my twin sister Corrie begged for shoes and ribbons as a small child, I’d beg for a new guppy or gourami for my growing collection of tanks. Every new fish had a name, usually one first christened by George Lucas. And I knew each of their preferred temperatures and pH by heart, testing their tanks for the required elements every weekend and adjusting even slight aberrations immediately. Kellen called me The Little Mermaid sometimes, for my ability to “speak” to my fish. Before he stopped calling me anything, that is. But I was so anxious to shed my reputation as “The Fish Girl,” that I didn’t even have a beta fish now, and I’d only packed the fish books that looked text-bookish enough to appear I had an interest, and not an obsession. I left the ball cap with the fish head, worn thin from years of use, and my “Shark Bait” T-shirt at home in Michigan along with nine pages of instructions for my dad to take care of my fish.
“Have you ever had a boyfriend, Tammy?” Jane’s subject change caught
Jane began giggling. “How about finding a way to get Tammy out of the V-club…with Dallas?” Linda joined her giggling.
I had trouble falling asleep that night. My head still raced with thoughts of Dallas and the firmness of his grip on the railing. Dallas was a bit bumbling, but in a cute way—like a blue-eyed John Cusack. In my head, I re-wrote all of the 80s movies Kellen had made me watch with Dallas in Cusack’s roles and me as the female lead. There was Better Off Dead, where I transformed into a curly-haired French exchange student that Dallas finally realizes makes a much better girlfriend than the trampy Beth—replaced by LaVerne in my fantasy. One Crazy Summer , where Dallas was hopeless at basketball but still a romantic at heart, although I exchanged Demi Moore’s dreadlocks for a sleeker mane in my imagination. And of course, there was Say Anything. Tomorrow morning I’d be half-asleep when I would faintly hear Peter Gabriel echoing through Alpha. I’d stare at the ceiling, wondering who was playing music when Linda nudged me. I’d throw on a robe to see Dallas standing in the courtyard, serenading me with a more compact boombox than the one in the movie and forgoing Cusack’s trenchcoat for board shorts. All we needed was a classic 80’s car for background scenery and someone playing the saxophone for effect.
But what came next? What did college couples do? I wasn’t ready to visualize losing my V-status—so far in my fantasy we’d walked around campus multiple times holding hands and having romantic moments in the hammocks by the sea wall outside the marine biology building. I finally fell asleep right after we started fooling around wearing increasingly limited articles of clothing.
The storage door leading to the roof remained unlocked, and for the next week, we met there every night. Somehow being out on the roof gave us more of a free feeling, and instead of continuing the same conversations we’d have in our dorm room, we’d talk more about our hopes and dreams, past and present. “What made you decide to come to Eckhart?” Jane asked us.
“Marine biology,” Linda said with a sigh. “Which is pointless now that I’ve changed my major.”
“You changed it?”
“Yeah. We had a guest speaker come to my Heritage class, and they were telling us all the stuff you have to go through to be a dolphin trainer. Did you know most of them have psychology degrees?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You have to work, like, 60 hours a week, and it’s super competitive.”
“And they get paid dick,” Jane supplied.
“Yeah, that and they don’t even have psych as a major here. So I guess I’ll never get to work with dolphins.”
“Is that why you chose Eckhart, Tammy?” Jane asked.
“Not for dolphins. I hate those friggin’ things.”
“No, I mean for its marine biology program.”
I nodded. I’d always been a fish enthusiast. While my twin sister Corrie begged for shoes and ribbons as a small child, I’d beg for a new guppy or gourami for my growing collection of tanks. Every new fish had a name, usually one first christened by George Lucas. And I knew each of their preferred temperatures and pH by heart, testing their tanks for the required elements every weekend and adjusting even slight aberrations immediately. Kellen called me The Little Mermaid sometimes, for my ability to “speak” to my fish. Before he stopped calling me anything, that is. But I was so anxious to shed my reputation as “The Fish Girl,” that I didn’t even have a beta fish now, and I’d only packed the fish books that looked text-bookish enough to appear I had an interest, and not an obsession. I left the ball cap with the fish head, worn thin from years of use, and my “Shark Bait” T-shirt at home in Michigan along with nine pages of instructions for my dad to take care of my fish.
“Have you ever had a boyfriend, Tammy?” Jane’s subject change caught
Similar Books
