Keeping Up With Avery

Chapter One: You Can Call Me Avery

I stood at the corner of my bedroom and took one last look in the full-length mirror. I had on a pair of my favorite skinny jeans, a pleated turquoise blouse, yellow ballet flats and the leather slingbag my mom got me from that trip to Singapore last summer. Yep, it isn't gunna get any better than that. I thought to myself. It was about 98°F out today and I was starting to rethink the jeans I was wearing. With hesitation, I put my dirty blond hair up in a messy top knot and hoped the sheerness of my blouse would keep me from sweating like a pig on my first day of college. I grabbed my cherry chapstick and darted for the door.

"Avery!"

Honk, honk!

"I'm coming!"

I opened the fridge and grabbed the first thing I saw - an apple. "Sure beats an empty stomach, I guess.", I said to myself. Honk, honk, honk!! I dashed across the foyer and out to the front porch where I could see my dad's face behind the half-rolled down windows of his black SUV. "Are you coming or not?", he asked. I headed for the passenger seat and shut the door beside me.

"Sorry, I went back up for my class schedule sheet. Left it on my bedside table."

"I told you to have everything ready before you went to bed last night. I've got a very important meeting with the board members today, I'm already fifteen minutes late..."

I sat there, squirming in my seat like a 10-year-old getting scolded by her father. Yada, yada, yada. My dad went on and on about the significance of learning proper punctuality in the real world but I knew all the words to this song and my mind just couldn't help but drift off. The heat was unbearable. The AC wasn't doing me any good and already, I felt sweat beading up on my temples. I put my bag on the car floor as I pulled down the mirror in front of me to give me some shade from the scorching sun. If it weren't for my heinous brother and his basketball scholarship at the state university, I wouldn't be sitting here, hitching a ride with Mr. Punctuality. My whole life, I dreamt of going to USC for college so that I could finally breathe the air of independence. Sure, it wasn't ivy league but there was something so fascinating to me about living on my own in California near the beach and the city both at the same time. I'd have the time of my life balancing studies, going to college parties, lounging on the beach on weekends...

"And besides, it's not going to be forever. Just at least have a sense of responsibility for God's sake. It's college, not military school."

My dad gave me a stern look as I twiddled with my thumbs. I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Jesus. You haven't been listening to me again, have you? Get yourself together, Avery. This isn't high school anymore. You're 17. All you've got to do is eat, sleep and study and you can't even do it right. In the real world, you're going to get eaten alive if you keep this up. What time did you even get out of bed?"

My dad was about mid-sentence when I realized he was still yapping about my so-called blatant disregard for being on time. I furrowed my brow and reached for my bag as I dug into the messy pile of notebooks and sheets of paper. When I found my earphones, I rolled them up into my fist and zipped my bag back up as I waited for him to finish monologuing.

"One week. Then you get to bunk in with your brother at Kenton. All I'm asking is that you at least try to be a little bit more considerate of my job and the fact that I'm on call 24/7 these days."

Kenton Towers was a condominium my mom had checked out for us before the semester started. It was located (or rather smooshed) between campus and a local commercial center. She had a strong distaste for dormitories and communal bathrooms, "They're breeding grounds for bacteria!", she claimed one night at dinner a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, my mom had managed to rent us a studio-size bedroom unit at Kenton just a few days before school started. The bad news was, the unit owner wouldn't be back in town for another week which meant I had to ride with my dad back and forth to school for four more days.