Innocence Read online

Chapter 3

  By the time I returned to my dorm room, Sonya had more of her colorful but bizarre paintings on the wall. But now there was another coed in our room, checking them out. Sonya glanced up as I entered our room through the propped-open door. I must have appeared flustered from my bizarre bathroom encounter with Josh, because the all-seeing artist did a double-take.

  Sonya stopped chatting about her work and addressed me. “You okay, roomie?” she asked, narrowing her perceptive, almond-shaped eyes.

  The renewed attention on me warmed my face. I shrugged.

  “Just be careful when you use the bathroom,” I mumbled, stepping deeper into the room as both young women watched me. “You never know who will be in the next stall taking a bowel movement. Suffice it to say, it isn’t pretty.”

  Sonya adopted a knowing smile. “So you ran into one of our male neighbors,” she observed. “Guys do like their shit, don’t they? They’re so Neanderthal that way. I grew up with brothers, so I’m used to it.”

  I shook my head. “Not me. I’ll be waking early to use the facilities.”

  I turned my attention to the visitor in our room.

  She was pretty but plain-looking. And this wasn’t merely the fact that she was sans make-up and nice clothes for move-in day. The coed before me had the appearance of a young woman who didn’t go in for the whole girly-girl, dress-up thing. Instead, she bore the awkward bearing of a tomboy and the slacker appearance of a skateboarder.

  Sonya noticed my inspection of her guest.

  “This is our next-door neighbor,” Sonya said. “Monica Creed, meet Lauren Marks.”

  Lauren looked at the tile floor, even as I extended my hand. “Pleased to meet you,” I said, taking her limp hand in mine. “Welcome to Old State.”

  Lauren glanced up and attempted an uncertain smile. “You too,” she managed. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Lauren noticed that your father’s a cop,” Sonya said, gesturing toward the framed pictures on my desk of my dad in his dress blues. “She comes from a long line of police, too. Guess I won’t be able to get away with anything.”

  Sonya meant it as a joke, but I resented the implication.

  “I’m no narc,” I protested. “That’s my dad, not me. He’s chief by the way, not a cop. And he’s the best man I ever knew, but I’m not following in his footsteps. Far from it.”

  “Easy, Creed,” Sonya said, raising a palm as if to back me off. “Bad choice of words on my part. No offense, alright?”

  I nodded but my jaw was set and my back, up. I noticed the shy Lauren Marks studying me.

  “Blue’s in the blood in my family,” she said. “Both my brothers are cops. My dad, my grandfather and an uncle, too. I didn’t play with dolls. I learned how to respect and shoot guns. But I don’t feel the department treats female cops with respect. That’s why I’m going into forensic science. We not only catch the bastards with science; we help put them away in court. I like that.”

  I saw a different Lauren then. She spoke with confidence and certainty. She knew what she wanted and why she was here. That was more than I could say for myself. I also better understood her appearance and demeanor. She had grown up in an environment overcharged with testosterone. She could have gone entirely the other way into frilly femininity. Or she could hold her own against boys, covering up the female parts of herself that the men considered a weakness. This didn’t mean that Lauren wasn’t a woman, far from it. She just didn’t have much experience being one. This made her innocent in a way. And it would fuel – hell, it would make all of us, the rest of the Five – want to show her the way. We would seek to turn Lauren into a woman in full. Her femininity would be our creation. We’d be her proud surrogate parents, pushing her into dates, taking her to wild, beer-fueled frat parties where all the testosterone she confronted growing up would see her as the prey. Maybe, we just pushed too hard. Anyway, I should have never doubted that Lauren Marks would hold her own. In the end, she was tougher than all of us. All of us, combined.

  “Sounds intriguing,” I said, and meant it. “Wait until you meet my dad. You won’t be able to shut him up. He always feels the need to talk up law enforcement as a career. Says it’s noble work, and you can look at yourself in the mirror in the morning.”

  “It is,” Lauren declared. “I’m already sold. But I’d still like to talk to him.”

  “Huh?” I muttered, distracted for some reason.

  “Your father,” Lauren said. “I’d like to ask him his management perspective regarding the equal treatment of women in his department. It goes beyond hiring. I’m talking about equal treatment – fair treatment – within the department culture. The thin blue line cops always talk about. I’m not sure female cops have ever penetrated it. Not really. Not fully. Not completely.”

  “My father is very fair,” I said.

  “I’m sure he is,” Lauren answered. But it was the automatic reply of a robot, and she averted her cautious eyes as she said it.

  “Anyway,” she shrugged. “All those male cops in my family? They’re just as guilty. It’s a guy thing, just like the dude you encountered in the bathroom. They stink it up for us so we can’t stand it. So we retreat. Give in. Go away.”

  Lauren shook her head with resolve. “I’m not going away.”

  Her vow hung in the air with such serious intent. Then, Sonya pierced all the police talk with a well-timed question.

  “So who was it?” Sonya asked me.

  “Hmm?” I hummed.

  “The dude in the john?” she clarified.

  “Oh, that,” I said. “Said his name was Josh. Come to think of it, I didn’t get his last name.”

  “Josh Elliot?” Sonya said, her voice rising in amazement. “The guy is gorgeous. And you gave him shit over his shit?”

  I cocked my head, reconsidering whether I had committed a social blunder over his bowel movement.

  “Well, it did stink,” I said in weak defense. “And then he made some crack about showering together.”

  “Wait. What?” Sonya nearly shouted. “He asked you to shower with him? You didn’t tell us that! Now dish, girl. Dish!”

  “I don’t know if he was flirting,” I mumbled, flustered by Sonya’s intense interest and her admiring praise for Josh’s aesthetics. He was hot, no doubt about that. But was he toying with me?

  “Did he mention showering with you or not?” Sonya drilled.

  “He did, yeah.” I hemmed and hawed. “But he could have just been goading me over the whole guys’ gross bathroom habits thing. In retrospect, I probably came off like some snotty school marm.”

  “Damn it, Creed,” Sonya snapped. “Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

  I was dumbstruck. No, I didn’t see.

  “You handled it perfectly,” Sonya said. “Hell, it’s like a meet-cute right out of those schmaltzy romantic comedies Hollywood churns out.”

  “I don’t know,” Lauren interjected. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie where the main characters encounter each other in a coed bathroom, right after the guy just finishes an epic dump.”

  We all laughed at that. The entire situation was so absurd. And to hear it put into Lauren Marks’ unvarnished words was just too much.

  “Nooo,” Sonya sang, amid the chuckles. “Not the taking a dump part. The way Creed, here, acted all tough and aloof. See, we’re in college now.”

  “No shit,” I shot back, my face still red, breaking myself up all over again.

  “Yes, shit,” Lauren corrected, giggling. “Yes, a lot of shit, frankly.”

  And we all laughed anew at this.

  Finally, Sonya pressed her point. “The college mindset – especially, the college guy mindset -- is that people can have sex at any time, okay?” she began. “What’s to stop them, get it? So sex becomes almost ordinary or something.” She shrugged. “Like shaking hands or something. But Creed, here.”

  Sonya pointed at me with prosecutorial flair.

  “She meets the hottest gu
y on our floor,” Sonya continued. “Hell, maybe the hottest guy in the whole damn dorm. And how does she play it? Does she come off all impressed and fawning? Does she fall all over herself, tongue-tied and pathetic?”

  Sonya paused for a beat, satisfied with her presentation on the wily ways of college romance.

  “No,” Sonya resumed, shaking her head slowly, projecting the full import of her lesson. “Creed, here, scolds the dude over smelling up the bathroom.”

  Sonya shook her head in awe, then added, “Brilliant, Monica. Absolutely brilliant.”

  Both women gazed at me in admiration. I actually smiled with some measure of pride. Perhaps I had handled the situation superbly.

  “I think you might just have a shot with this guy,” Sonya surmised. “But we’re going to have to game plan this thing. You had a great opening, but you could still blow it.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, not sure I wanted a shot with Josh Elliot, he of the irritable bowel, perfect hair and beguiling eyes.

  “I’m just saying,” Sonya said.

  I frowned, considering the momentous sweep of my day, the first at college. I had gone from bidding goodbye to parents, feeling the unbridled energy of my newfound freedom, to reaming out the best-looking dude in the dorm. Well, if Sonya thought I had a shot with Josh Elliot, why not take it?

  “Tell me more, oh wise one,” I smiled.

  Sonya smiled then, too. So did Lauren.

  “Now this,” Sonya began, “is what college is all about.”