Color Blind

Chapter 12

The following week, we went to Miami. Tia and I spent all day in the ocean while Aunt Rachael spent the majority of the day shopping. She had never been too big on being out in the sun for long, and would choose the artificially cool interior of a shopping mall over sitting around on a hot beach any day. I got the feeling that this trip had been set up more for my benefit than anyone else's, but they never knew that I was on to them.

As we neared the end of our trip, Tia and I came across two boys named Jacob and Martin. It turned out that they were also cousins and within minutes they had us screaming with laughter. We decided that they were funny enough to keep around for the rest of our trip. It didn't hurt that they were so cute either. After a while, we sort of paired up. Tia and Martin, who both had significant others, had an unspoken understanding that they were both off limits. That left Jacob and me. At first, I really wasn't feeling his whole flirtatious style, but the more time I spent with him, the more I liked him. By the end of the trip, Jacob and I had exchanged phone numbers and planned to come visit each other...at some point. Tia and Martin just decided to say their good-byes and leave it at that.

The rest of the school year was pretty slow. Tia and Lafayette didn't spend nearly as much time together as they had before, but that was mostly because of the massive amount of work that Lafayette had to do. Tia, being the social butterfly that she was, never even gave the lost time a second thought.

I was also busy, spending most of my time with the drill team doing various fundraisers and half time shows, so Scott and I didn't spend much time together that year either. I mostly saw him in passing, but he was always surrounded by girls so I never stopped to say more than a few words to him at a time. I guessed that maybe this was a good thing, since up until our last phone conversation I had been trying to impress my mother by not being around him, anyway. I caught Scott watching me from the sidelines once during one of our booty-shaking routines, however, and became so self-conscious that I missed a step and threw everyone behind me off beat. I think he knew that he was making me nervous, too, because not too long after that he turned around and went back into the locker room.

A few weekends after that, Jacob was up visiting some family in Ft. Lauderdale and decided to stop by Mo' City to pay me a visit. We had been talking a lot over the phone and had somehow ended up "going" together. I don't know how we figured we could form any kind of relationship based on a couple of days at the beach, daily letters, and a few phone calls, but we decided to give it a try. I felt safer having a boyfriend so far away, for a number of reasons, and was very pleased with the fact that this now gave me someone to talk to and at the same time made me off limits to other boys who could actually have physical contact with me. In all, I was happy in my little world, and still being so naïve, I really thought that a relationship like this could last forever.

The night that Jacob came over, Tia and Lafayette were on their way out to eat and invited us to join them. Ironically, we ended up at the same drive-in diner that Lucky and I had broken up at the year before. Even more ironically, Scott and his new girlfriend, Sandie the Prom Queen – or whatever juniors could be – were there and decided to join us.

"'Sup y'all?" Scott asked as he pulled up two chairs. "This is Sandie," he said to no one in particular. We all already at least knew who she was, if not knew her personally, so I think that the introduction was more a formality than anything else.

After Scott introduced Sandie, he looked expectantly from Jacob to me. When I didn't say anything, Jacob held out his hand. "Waddup dude, Jacob."

They shook hands and Tia, as usual, decided to cut through the awkwardness by giving Scott the 411. "This is Rica's new boyfriend. We met him at the beach."