Chapter 24

Phil walked into the dining room and saw Tiffany and Molly smirking at him. He shook his head and rolled his eyes – which only caused the smirks to grow larger. Katelyn seemed to be transfixed by the bowl of corn flakes in front of her.

Well, shit, Phil thought. Katelyn had never been one for physical contact. She had punched him in the arm a time or two and ruffled his hair but she wasn’t like Tiffany who sought hugs and kisses on the cheek as affirmation of her standing. Katelyn seemed to prefer to be treated – at least by Phil – as one of the guys.

“So, seen any good dicks lately?” Phil asked as he sat down.

Molly snorted and tea exploded across the table. Tiffany bit her hand to keep from bursting into laughter. Katelyn just looked up from her cereal.

“Only the one at this table,” she said blithely. She suddenly understood how her comment could be construed and shook her head. “OK, fine. I saw you getting hoovered. Big deal. Given Hailey’s obvious enjoyment I’m guessing it’s not the last time. Just remember to lock the fucking door, OK? The last thing I need is to have to go to the school psychologist because I’m traumatized.”

“Got it,” Phil agreed. “You realize I owe you one, right? I get one free peek at you in the shower at a time and place to be determined.”

“Not if you want be able to use that rinky-dink thing you call a pecker again,” Katelyn said.

“Yo’ mama liked it OK,” he replied as he put the spoon to his mouth. “She even let me keep the 50 cents I usually have to pay.”

He saw Tiffany and Molly stiffen in their seats. He couldn’t see Hailey but he heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him.

“At least the Virgin Islands didn’t have to change their name after my mama visited,” Katelyn replied. “Can’t say the same about yo’ mama.”

“Are we good?” Phil asked, joining Katelyn in smiles that no one else understood.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Katelyn replied.

“I’ve got to scoot,” Phil said. “Is everyone here for lunch?”

“I’m going to head home,” Molly replied. “I’m out of panties and Hailey stares.”

“Yeah, she’s a real perv,” Phil replied. “You can take the car if you’re coming back later otherwise someone will run you home. I’ll see you lovely folks about noon. Tiff, would you care to join me on my trek to campus?”

“Yeppers,” Tiffany said. Phil gave Molly a kiss on the cheek and patted Katelyn’s arm. Hailey got the full treatment – including tongue – before he took Tiffany’s hand and headed out the door.

“What just happened there?” Hailey asked. “I figured you would fly across the table and cut out his heart with your spoon when he made that crack about your mother.”

“Not my mother,” Katelyn said. “My mama. It’s a whole different thing. He’s never met my mother and he wouldn’t say anything bad about her if he had. The same is true of his mother. But all friends have mamas. It’s some fictional person whose only role in life is to be made fun of. It’s like, your mama’s so fat she has to iron her pants in the driveway. We were affirming our friendship by making fun of each other. If I were a guy he’d have a joke about me having a small dick, too. Then I would have responded with the Yo’ Mama bit. He didn’t want to bring gender into it, I think, so he cut out the rejoinder and went straight to Yo’ Mama.”

Molly and Hailey exchanged glances.

“Yeah, no help,” Hailey admitted. “I still don’t get it. But you aren’t freaked out any more?”

“We’re fine,” Katelyn said, laughing. “You might be the whitest girl I’ve ever met. I thought everyone knew the Yo’ Mama thing.”

“It apparently hasn’t made it to Ireland yet either,” Molly said as she gathered her books. Her class was closest so she left 10 minutes after the ones who had class in the farthest buildings.

“And Ireland is known as a bastion of racial diversity,” Katelyn laughed. “What do you have, 10 blacks on the whole island?”

“True,” Molly said after a moment. “So the jokes are ethnic. Phil isn’t black.”

“Yeah, I could tell that this morning,” Katelyn replied with a laugh before turning serious. “He’s not black but I can tell he’s friends with some. I mean real friends, not ‘speak to them in private but cross the street in public’ friends.”

“A guy named Terrence Grant used to live with him,” Hailey said. “He’s a football player at Wisconsin.”

“T-Bone Grant lived with Phil?” Katelyn asked. “Are you shitting me?”

“I have to run but I’ll want to know all about a man named after a cut of beef,” Molly said with a laugh as she headed out the door. Katelyn waited for Molly to leave before she turned her stare back to Hailey.

“Are you serious?” Katelyn asked.

“I met him a couple of weeks ago,” Hailey confirmed. “He said his dad kicked him out of the house and Phil’s family took him in. He’s really nice.”

“Damn!” Katelyn said. “They said he would be a No. 1 draft pick if he’d have gone pro this year. He said he made a promise to both of his mothers to get a degree and he’s short by a few hours.”

“I would bet the second mother was Phil’s mom, Beth,” Hailey said. “I’m sure she impressed upon him how fleeting athletic glory is and made him promise to have something to back it up later.”

“Fleeting glory,” Katelyn said, shaking her head. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?” Hailey agreed.

“Real pathetic,” Katelyn responded. “I’m going to tell you something: Phil’s a real nice guy. I don’t know if you two will stay together forever or what, but if you do something to hurt him again you and I are going to have problems. I’m pretty low-key most of the time but I will fight for my friends. He’s my friend. Got it?”

“I’m your friend, too,” Hailey pointed out.

“You are,” Katelyn admitted. “And you’re becoming a closer friend every day. But Phil won’t knock you on your ass and I will. I just didn’t want it to be a surprise if it happens.”

“Good,” Hailey said. “I’m not planning to do anything stupid but sometimes it happens without much planning. I’m glad you have his back.”

Phil returned to his apartment and was surprised to find the door locked. He was thankful that the women had left the key under the mat because his were with his car keys – on his dresser. He turned and saw his car was gone, too.

He unlocked the door and found a note on the table.

“Sweetie, (it read)

“We ran Molly home and then Katelyn, Tiffany and I are going to the dorm, the mall and then the grocery store.

“I left you a sub in the fridge for lunch. We’ll be back by supper.

“Love you,

“Hailey.”

“P.S.: We love you too! Tiffany and Katelyn.

“P.S.S.: OK, we only like you a lot! Hailey says we can’t love you. It’s against the rules. So don’t tell her. T&K.”

He laughed when he saw the smiley face at the bottom of the note.

As he put some mayo on his sandwich, Phil reflected on how much his life had changed in two weeks. Two Fridays before – at almost the same exact time – he was leaving his quiet apartment dreading the thought of spending any time with Hailey Warren. Now he sat there and counted the hours before she would return.

He didn’t know Molly Kelly or Katelyn Gorman even existed and he only knew Tiffany Grayling as Hailey’s ever-present shadow. Now he reflected that he missed their company, too. He had spent time alone since Hailey had come into his life – the previous Sunday night, for instance – but it had been rare.

He thought back to a month before. The cold February weather had made it so he didn’t even want to venture out to get something to eat. He sat alone in his apartment – as he had every day of his college existence – and pondered if he wouldn’t be better served to start over somewhere else. His friend Scott had pressed him to transfer to State. Phil knew several people there and he had gone up to visit Scott the week before classes had started at Heilman.

He sat in on a few of Scott’s classes because the sizes were so large the professors knew exactly no one. In some ways it was no different than high school had been: the teachers had to teach to the slowest kids in the class.

Heilman was different. The class sizes were reasonable and the information presented was pertinent to the topic. If you couldn’t or wouldn’t keep up the rest of the class left you behind – and you were not invited back the following semester. He wondered if Hailey’s grades would drop now that she wasn’t showing her crotch to half of her professors. She was bright, Phil knew that, but she had demonstrated a penchant for laziness. No, he decided, she had demonstrated her penchant for poor decisions. He hoped she had her head on better. She had cut the lifeline, so to speak, with her mother. If she failed at Heilman it was likely that she’d wind up at some junior college – or working in retail without a college degree. That would be a shame.

Tiffany was pretty bright, too, it seemed. She had earned an academic scholarship after her first semester and that wasn’t easy to do. Her parents had sent her to college to get an education degree – or at least to take education classes. She had told Phil her parents didn’t care about B.A. or Ph. D. after her name but instead were focused on Mrs. in front of it. She had dropped all of her courses the moment she arrived on campus and changed her major from education to marketing and graphic design. At most colleges the switch would have sent her on an easy academic path if a harder career one. At Heilman the design courses were rumored to be as difficult as they were in every other discipline.