She's Just That Kind of Girl

Ten | Violet

-    11 days until LSU kickoff     -

I stood in a busy Starbucks line with my bodyguards, waiting to reach the wide awake, fast cashier juggling writing down the old lady's complicated order on her venti cup and entering it in the cash register with a struggle. I needed an afternoon pick-me-up.

            I got two of them today. Bodyguards I mean. I learned they liked to be called Executive Protection Agents because the title "bodyguard" had been severely tarnished. Which I could understand and get behind, but bodyguard title is easier to say, remember, and is universally known so here we are.

            Today I decided to get out on my own for a while so I could enjoy some quality alone time. I settled on going to the mall to do some shopping therapy. No sisters, no football players, just me. Though Tanner amused me in ways I couldn't quite understand right now, I needed to distance myself from men. At least for the day. I did consider asking my sisters to tag along, but that was just as exhausting as thinking about all the things they would say and do and ask. Just not worth the frustration. Not today.

"Ma'am?" the feisty cashier said.

            I blinked out of my trance and looked at her. I realized I needed to move up and order. I ordered three coffees for myself and the guards.

            The lady nodded as she wrote my info down on my cup. "And your name?"

            "Uh, Eliza."

            "Right away, miss."

            I grabbed a table and hung out in a back corner near the counter but out of sight. As I waited with my guards, I tapped my hand against the surface boredingly. Tap, tap, tap. I listened to my hand hitting the table. It triggered something. An idea. A beat. Much like drums, it sparked a rhythmical base musically. When I played around with the sound, I quickly caught myself and let the inspiration die. No. This is a hoax. A fluke. Nothing would thrive from this.

A few moments later we heard. "Eliza!"

            We grabbed the coffees and walked down the polished pathways again. The guards scouted the exits, entrances, and bathrooms earlier before my arrival as they always do once they know in advance about where I'm going and doing on any given day. This trip was interesting because everything was on a whim rather than a set schedule. While our high-profile lives were always unpredictable, this felt different because it was vacation and not work.

            I stepped into a Barnes and Noble to scan the literary and young adult sections, two of my favorite genres to read back before all this mamadas started. Now reading had become like music, insufferable. Honestly, the only thing helping was football and I knew why, but didn't want to admit it.

            As I browsed, I scanned around to witness my guards picking up books to speculate each one's subject matter. I allowed a smirk to escape, then quickly tucked it back into resting. The giant magazine wall caught my eye like an intriguing magazine spread itself and drew me in. My gaze trailed the ongoing rows of paper-books filled with words that spread wildfires, some of it true, most of it false, and one-hundred-and-ten-percent of it pure Hollywood entertainment gold.

I snatched one up with my sisters and I's faces on it and buried my nose into it, skimming to find the pages with us while also hiding my face just in case.

            I found the spread. The entire left page was a picture of me strolling down West 81st Street to Central Park. My attire being the complete boast of this piece. I wore a dirt-stained white tee tied in a knot at the front and mid-waisted mom jeans over ultra-high-waisted yoga pants. A smaller shot to the right corner of this one was similar, but I adorned an ultra-cropped rashguard with high-waisted bell-bottoms down East 12th Street that day. They called it Blue Queen's Street Style Gold. Absurd. More effortless street fashion from the Blue Queen of the Big Apple! Creator of the Dirty-Boyfriend t-shirt and the Jogas—Yoga-Jeans—look, she's done it again! Sporting an ultra-cropped rashguard and high-waisted '70s jean-treasure, and of course, her signature braided bun. Another gold outfit to the envious style journals! they said.