Chapter Three
Dominic
The girl from the bar found me at school. I was walking in with Tim when she came bounding over. She started telling Tim how I was not interested in sitting with her at the bar, and then she started flirting with him as if he was much more interesting to her suddenly.
“You look good today,” she said to Tim.
“Uh, thank you,” Tim said and looked at her in surprise.
“Hi, Penny,” I said.
“Hi,” she said and turned away from me to look at Tim. “So, Tim, any chance you want to get a drink later this week?”
“Uh, sure,” he said although I could see that he wasn’t sure at all.
“Great. Here’s my number,” she said and handed him a piece of paper. I wanted to ask her how on earth she already had her number on a piece of paper for him. Had she planned to give it to him or did she always walk around with her number?
When she walked away, Tim looked at me and burst out laughing.
“Dude! She’s so into you,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Uh, I think you’ll find she was hitting on you, not me. Aren’t you the one with her phone number?”
“Yeah, but the whole time she kept checking to see what your reaction was. She isn’t interested in me at all. She was just trying to make you jealous. So, were you jealous?”
I laughed. “No. That only made it worse. Did she really think I would be interested now that she hit on my best friend?”
Tim chuckled. “You can’t blame her for trying. I’m pretty impressed.”
“You should totally call her up and ask her out. See what happens,” I said.
“Poor girl will run a mile. I doubt she’s expecting me to phone her. I think she’s just hoping that you will be jealous enough to take that number from me. Hey, where are you going? Class is this way.”
“I know. But Professor Jackson asked me to come and see him this morning. No idea why.”
“Professor Jackson? Are you in trouble?”
“I hope not. Don’t know what I could’ve done, though.”
“Yeah, you’re one of his favorites. I sincerely doubt you’re in trouble. Okay, well, I’ll see you later then. Practice later?”
“For sure. See you then.”
I made my way to Professor Jackson’s classroom. I had always liked him as a teacher. I wasn’t sure if Tim was right about me being one of his favorites, but he was definitely one of mine. I knew he liked me, but that was because I actually put in the work unlike some of the other guys in the class. Sometimes I wondered why people came to college in the first place. All they cared about was partying and having fun. Nobody really seemed to want to work, and then they got upset when they didn’t get good grades. I was only liked because I was a hard worker, and there were definitely very few of those around campus. I knocked on the door, and he called for me to come in.
Professor Jackson always made me chuckle. He was a young guy, not all that much older than the rest of the students, but he gave off the impression of being much older. He’d told us to call him Geoffrey many times, but none of us could do it. He’d always be Professor Jackson to us. Today he was wearing a tweed jacket that looked like something my grandfather would’ve worn. It suited him, though. I wondered what he would’ve looked like as a teenager. It was something I just couldn’t picture. To me, he would always be this older wiser man who walked around in tweed jackets and brown loafers. He smiled when he saw me and gestured for me to take a seat. His smile made me think that I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Dominic, thanks for coming in,” he said.
“No problem. Everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. How’s the football going?” he asked. He always asked me about football even though it was clear he didn’t know much about it at all. But whenever he saw me, he always asked. And just the same I always asked him what he was reading.
“Going good. I think the team is pretty strong this year. I hope so at least.”
“You still have those NFL aspirations?” he asked.
“Absolutely! That’s the aim.”
He chuckled. “Well, good for you my boy. You have a lot of talent in other areas, but I know better not to push a student that so clearly wants to go a certain way in life. Nevertheless, I’m glad that you are still studying hard and trying to get good grades. That says a lot for you.”
“Thank you. So, what are you reading?”
“Oh, I found an old Ernest Hemingway book. Not a popular one. I think it was unedited or something. Selling for a fortune, but I found one at an old tucked away bookstore. I always say that those bookstores are the best places to go. I prefer my books as hand-me-downs anyway. I like to know that they have been loved and treasured,” he said. He had a faraway look on his face, like he always did when he talked about books. Then, when he realized I was still there, he quickly shook his head. “Sorry, I get carried away. Now, the reason I asked you in today has nothing to do with books or football. I asked you to come by because of the class project.”
I frowned. “Yeah? All okay?”
“Yes. I know I put you with Sam, but I’ve decided to do some reshuffling and instead put you with the new girl. I’m not sure if you’ve met her yet? Lovely young thing. Although I think today might be her first day, actually. I met her when she came in to meet with the dean a few weeks ago.”
“New girl?” I said and shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Who is she?”
“Candice. Goodness, I forgot her surname. Something with a B. Her father is some well-known guy around town. Anyway, I thought you’d be the best partner for her. She’s a smart girl who is grades above her peers, between you and me, of course. Don’t let the others know this. I don’t want to put a spotlight on her. I think it would be nice for the two of you to work together. I have always thought that you were years above everyone too. And it will be nice for her to have someone like you helping her. It’s not always easy being the new.”
I didn’t mind so much. Sam was my friend, but he wasn’t the best person to work with on school projects. He was always so negative and didn’t want to put in as much effort as I did. I was always the one that ended up doing all the work. I hadn’t even wanted to be with Sam in the first place, but he had immediately volunteered, and the professor had agreed. Sam probably knew that I would do more work than him. He wasn’t going to be happy when he found out that he had been taken off my team.
“Sure, sounds great. What’s Sam going to do then?”
“Oh, don’t worry about him. I have reshuffled things around. I just wanted to put Riley in with you.”
“Cool. Well, that works for me. When do I meet her?”
“She’s on her way here now actually. I thought it would be best if the two of you met before class. I wanted to talk to you first, though. I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
“Not at all. Not at all,” I said and hoped that she’d be better than Sam.
Just then, I heard a small knock on the door, and when Professor Jackson told her to come in, I turned around to see who my new partner was going to be. I had no idea what to expect, but the vision that walked in was not the sort of girl that my mind had conjured up. This girl was beautiful. She reminded me of a movie star from the forties or fifties. Like a young Bridgette Bardot. Only her brightly dyed red hair gave away that she was not from the past. The mixture of old and new looked good on her, and I couldn’t imagine how I hadn’t seen her yet. This was a much better choice than Sam. Sam, for all his positive attributes, was not someone I really wanted to spend my time looking at. I realized I was staring and quickly gulped and stuck out my hand.
“Uh, hi. I’m Dominic,” I said. My voice seemed unusual to me. Did I always sound so unsure of myself? Where had my confidence disappeared to? I generally didn’t have a problem when it came to talking to pretty women before. I wasn’t the overly cocky type, but I also wasn’t usually as much of a blithering idiot. I wondered if Professor Jackson could see how hopeless I was acting.
She smiled, and the transformation was incredible. She went from beautiful to almost unearthly when she smiled. How could someone this beautiful be standing in front of me, shaking my hand? I really needed to get a hold of myself. I could not be making a very good first impression.
“Hi, Dominic; I’m Candice. Hi, Professor Jackson. Good to see you again,” she smiled and I found myself smiling along with her even though she was smiling at the professor, and not me.
“Candice, thanks for joining. Well, this is your new partner on the project I told you about. I thought it would be best if the two of you met face to face before class. I didn’t want to throw you in the deep end.”
“Oh thank you,” she said to the professor and then she looked at me. “It was nice of you to switch to do the project with me. I appreciate it. I hope it’s not too much of a problem.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said and chuckled. “I was paired with Sam before. Not sure if you’ve met him yet, but he’s not the most positive guy you’ll ever meet. He would’ve basically spent the whole time complaining about the project while I did most of the work.”
Professor Jackson laughed. “You hit the nail on the head there. Sam is a good kid, but boy have I never met someone that likes to complain as much as he does. You did Dominic here a favor by joining the class. And, for a change, it will be nice to see Sam actually doing his own work.”
“Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to throw Sam under the bus like that.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s clear as day that the boy does not work.”
I laughed. “That’s true. Well, uh, Candice, as you can see, I’m happy to work with you.”
“Oh, I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “It’s always a little nerve-wracking when you come in so late. Everyone has already formed groups. So this is nice.”
We made some small talk about the project and the class, and I wondered how I was going to get any work done with someone like her to look at. Tim was going to have a field day when he saw her too. There was just something so different about her. Also, something so familiar.
“Have we met before?” I asked her. It would be strange for me to have met someone like her and then forgotten about her. How could I forget someone as beautiful as she was? But she just seemed so familiar to me. I had thought so from the moment she walked in. At first, I just thought she looked like someone from a movie I’d seen, but the more she talked, the more I got the feeling that I had met her before.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Maybe I just have one of those faces.”
“Hmm, I can’t place it, but I could swear I’ve seen you before. Maybe you just look like an actress or something. Are you famous?” I said and chuckled.
For some reason, my question seemed to make her nervous. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair before chuckling back. “Not that I know of,” she said. Then she narrowed her eyes at me. “But, you know, come to think of it, you actually do look really familiar to me too. I feel like I’ve seen you before.”
“And I’m definitely not famous,” I said and laughed.
I realized that the two of us were talking as though Professor Jackson were not even in the room, so I quickly changed the subject back to the project.
“So, should we set some dates to meet up regularly for the project?” I said. “I think we’re going to have to do some good planning before we get started. I already have some ideas to run by you.”
“That’s a good idea,” Professor Jackson said. “This project is going to make up most of your grade this semester, so I want everyone to work hard on them.”
“I’m just going to have to find time around my practice schedule. Do you do any sport that we need to work around?” I asked.
She shook her head. “None at all. So you just let me know what works best for you. I can then work around whatever schedule you have. Uh, would you like my phone number?”
For some reason, I felt the heat rising to my face as she said it. Idiot! I berated myself. It wasn’t like she was giving me her number because she wanted to go on a date. Although, I couldn’t help but wonder if she had a boyfriend. So much for not being interested in girls, I thought as I handed her my number and got hers in exchange. We thanked the professor and walked out, ready to start the rest of our day.
“It was nice meeting you,” I said as we stepped out.
“You too. I’ll see you around,” she said and smiled her beautiful smile. I reminded myself to say a big thank you to Professor Jackson for choosing me to be her partner. Maybe I really was his favorite student after all.
I saw her in class later that day, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to her because I was swept away to practice quickly. I had hoped to see her around school, but I didn’t. Later that night, as I lay in bed, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering to her. It had been a busy day, one filled with classes and a long practice session of football. And yet, all I could think about was the beautiful red-haired vision with the soulful eyes. What was it about her that was so familiar to me? I lay there, trying to figure it out, but nothing came my way. I was sure she just looked like an actress, but even that wasn’t bringing up any results. Maybe she just had one of those faces. But as I closed my eyes and fell asleep, I couldn’t help but wonder why there was a familiar pang in my heart as her face flashed across my mind's eye.