The More We Know

Part Two

Volleyball night at UMass was like fight night in Vegas, minus the glitter and plastic, light-up heels. The campus was packed, nowhere to park, barely anywhere to walk. I was ten minutes late, so other than the inebriated frat boys staggering into the auditorium, no one else was around. Jogging up to the doors, I narrowly missed the worst of the staggering frat boys folding over and heaving violently. Had I been two steps farther, my shoes would have been a lost cause, but no harm, no foul.

“Keep up the good work, soldier,” I said, saluting as I weaved around him, making sure to give him a wide berth.

 My attempts at humor were lost on Drunk of the Night Award guy, as they had been more often than not here. I wasn’t sure if it was the Dartmouth or the college student in them, but this place didn’t find my staggering humor as humorous as the whole world had before. Not a good thing for a guy who eats sarcasm for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

 “Ugggghh,” a voice that screamed its owner had her nose curled called out. “You’re him, aren’t you? She said you were a hottie-patottie. However, she failed to mention you were fully aware of it.”

 Hottie-patottie? Who talked like that? Unable to resist, I turned to find out.

 The girl tapping her fingers over crossed arms inspired a discreet lunge backwards and then another one when her eyes narrowed as she took a step in my direction. She looked like a thrift store had thrown up on her, had that emo, black cracked nail polish look that screamed femininity at its finest, and to top it off, a look in her eyes that was so neurotic I couldn’t tell if she wanted to kill me or just bite my head off after mating with me.

 I suppose eccentric was a nicer way of putting it.

 “I moonlight as a hottie-patottie, but by day I’m an ogre named Sven,” I said, fighting instinct and crossing the space between me and the Barbie-burning president of the women’s lib movement.

 A tugging on one side of her mouth erupted. “You too? I thought I was the only one with the fairy tale curse. I’m a princess in pink by day and a black wearing bitch every night,” she said, rolling her eyes over princess or pink, I wasn’t sure. It was probably both. I could tell from ten seconds with this girl she’d never been a Cinderella wannabe.

  “And here I was under the impression that I had the fairy tale exclusivity going for me here at UMass,” I tossed her way, shaking my head. “Damn it, anyways.”

 “Charming too,” she said, dropping her head back. “This is not a good thing.” She continued to carry on a conversation with herself for a few more seconds before dropping her head back into place and appraising me with those nutty eyes again.

 “Julia,” she offered, softening some. “Julia Grey. I’m Aubrey's roommate, and I come bearing the gift of a coveted ticket to society’s way of cementing women as sex objects bouncing, twirling, and on display in a scrap of lycra for the whole of the perverted male world.”

 Wow, this girl’s got issues. Anger, daddy, or boyfriend issues I wasn’t sure, but I guessed it was an impressive mix of all three.

 “Ja—”

 “I know who you are,” she said, cutting me off as she held out the ticket curled between her fingertips like it was painful to have skin to paper contact with it. “Aubrey said you would be the ‘adorable’ one with moppy hair who smells like he's been rolling in a pot field.”

 “Aubrey said I was adorable?”

 “Maybe,” she said, chipping away at the remains of her black nail polish. “But if you ever repeat that I repeated that, I’ll use my jedi knight skills on you and light saber your fine little butt.”