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Below is an excerpt from Chapter One of my book “Virgin Hall” for your reading enjoyment.
I sat on the bed farthest from the windows, feet on the floor, back straight, hands in my lap, like the good little Catholic school girl I was taught to be, and waited for my roommate. My pink chambray dress looked fairly unwrinkled after the long flight from La Guardia to Dallas, but I kept my elbows clenched against my hipbones to hide the damp half moons under my arms. The almost eighty degree heat on this late September day had made me sweat despite deodorant. At least I didn’t smell (I hoped). No one had ever told me about dress shields. There are a lot of things like that you miss if your mother dies when you’re fourteen.
My stomach shivered. I was aware I wanted to run, but there was no thought of any possible destination. If I had known then that the events of this single year would infinitely change my life, I would have run blindly as a deer. But then, had I done so, I would have missed the blessings of knowledge dearly gained.
I stared at my feet. The black Pappagallo shoes, with their tiny string bows, looked like a ballet dancer’s, but instead of positioned in any of the school figures, my ankles were pressed together. To me, the tension was a sure sign that I would rather be anyplace else but here. Part of me knew that was just the result of the drastic change from home to college, from the East Coast to Texas, from having to live with my father to waiting for this unknown girl, with whom I would share the next year and this room. And I also knew why I had come so far from home to go to college. It was exactly that –far from home, far away from my Dad; away from the sad house and memories of my mother. Away from the fears that went with too much, too soon.
The job of helping daughters move into Virginia Hall, the freshman dormitory, seemed, at least here, to be the province of fathers. I managed by myself to transport the two suitcases and one box from the curb where the taxi left me to this bedroom on the third floor of the dormitory. I may have been anxious but I also felt proud and independent.
My thoughts were interrupted by a shrill, almost mature feminine voice echoing down the hall. “Man on third. Man on third.”
I heard the door open and jumped up partly in fright, partly in anticipation.
“Hi,” the tall girl said in a loud voice. “I’m Eleanor Ann Cabel and you must be Sheila from New York. I’m your roommate.” Her smile was outlined in pink lipstick that looked as though it were made of crushed pearls.
A man who must be Eleanor Ann’s father followed the girl into the room. Here was the quintessential Texan, tall, rawboned, wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a blue shirt and a ten-gallon hat. He carried a suitcase, almost the size of a steamer trunk.
“Over there by the window, Daddy. Set it on over there on the floor and I’ll do the rest. Sheila, this is my Daddy.”
“How do you do, Mr. Cabel,” I said
“Glad to meet ya’, m’am,” Mr. Cabel answered, removing the Stetson. There was a tan line across his forehead. The rest of the face was seamed and chiseled
I offered my hand and he took it shyly, but the handshake ended with a firm grip. I noticed the palm was rough and callused.
Pushing long blonde hair from her eyes, Eleanor Ann kept up a steady flow of instructions and comments as her father placed the suitcase under the windows. “Now, Daddy, I think if I go back to the car with you, we can get everything else in one load. Wouldn’t you know,” she said shaking her head at me, “we’d end up on the third floor and, of course, no elevator. Well, at least we’ll catch the breeze up here.”
The couple left as quickly as they came. I sat back down on the bed and laughed to myself. I certainly had drawn an authentic Texan for a roommate.
©2010, Janet Taliaferro
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