Reliable with the LADIES (Hamilton)

Chapter 1

Laurens

I walked out of the shade of the reptile house to the bright sunlight of the outdoors. Obviously I had needed to see those adorable turtles because my damn college wouldn't let my have one.

It was my best friend, Henrietta Mulligan's turn to pick out which animals we saw next. When we had entered the zoo I beelined for the turtle habitat, and since that became the norm, we decided that we would switch turns of who got to choose which animal we went to see.

We visited the zoo frequently so I already knew Herc (she liked Herc or Hercules better then Henrietta, no matter how many times we told her it was a pretty name) would go straight for the lions. Good thing they were close.

The New York City Zoo was huge and it could take hours to get to all the animals but we had a strategic pattern of walking that we figured out around our 17th time we visited. It's a specific zig-zag that takes us to all our favourite animals

After the lions, we just followed the pattern. We end our trip to the zoo by visiting the turtles one last time and left the zoo to head back to the college.

We hopped onto a train going that direction. The train got stuffy fast so instead of going for another train we hailed a taxi. We stopped ten minutes away from the college grounds saved us a couple bucks on the taxi bill. It was one of the last really nice days before school started, so we decided we could handle walking.

When we got to the dorms we entered our large room. Hercules and I would be sharing our dorm with two other people. I was happy I knew at least one. Herc got up to go make herself some tea and I sat down in the living room.

Today I had my chaotically curly hair in a pony tail. I was wearing a nice flowy blue shirt and some ripped jean shorts. Herc has grown up with her parents both being tailors so she offered to make me clothes sometimes and my blue shirt was one of my favourites.

Of course she didn't agree with buying prewrecked clothes, but I sure loved annoying her and Magan (yes that's a unisex name I gotchu also these are the Schuyler sisters) , Elija and Antonio all agreed that she had to get with the times. It was what was on fashion and she just had to get over it.

Lafayette

I stared down the street waiting for my pen pal to show up. She was new to New York too but we had agreed to meet here when we had found out we had both been accepted to the same college. At least I'll kind of know someone I guess.

We had never met in real life so I didn't know what I was looking for exactly but I had told her to look out for a suitcase decorated with the French flag. I mean how many could there be?

'Maybe she got lost?' I thought to myself after a couple more minutes of waiting. Just then I heard a voice call my name.

"Marie?" I wipped my head around anxious to finally meet her.

We had been talking for about 6 months. She had lived on the Caribbean her whole life, me in France so I had never gotten to meet her. We both were orphans, that's why we first were prompted to write each other letters. She spoke French which was a definite plus because darn was English hard to learn.

"Alexandra?" I replied still looking for the source of the melodic voice. She stepped out of the crowd and I got a clear look at her.

She had straight brown hair that she kept out of her eyes with a green headband. She had on a mossy green crew neck shirt and some black jeans. To tie everything together she had on some green Nike runners and a suitcase with brightly coloured flowers on it.

We both just stood there, taking each other in for a second. I was suddenly aware of my grey and red stripped shirt and blue jeans. Great way to make a good first impression Laf. Just great.