windar
Teller of Tales
First, Happy New Year to all!
I wrote this story way back in the 2010s, so if any of the references seem dated that might explain it. Anyway, it's cold and dark, so wouldn't a trip to a luxurious mansion on a Caribbean island sound nice? It certainly did to Tara and her roommate Dee...
Thanks to Barb for reading this and providing encouragement and helpful suggestions. Who knew that college women these days wear leggings not sweatpants? I need to visit my local campus more often...
CHAPTER ONE
Tara Malone was staring out the window watching the fat flakes of snow drift slowly onto the campus walkway in front of her dorm. It was the fifth or maybe the sixth big snowfall of the season and it was still February, so at least a good month or more of lousy weather could be expected.
Tara’s Freshman year at Pitcher College, a very prestigious school in Upstate New York, was proving less rewarding than her expectations had led her to hope for when the fat envelope had arrived almost one year ago at the trailer she shared with her mother and her mother’s parade of scuzzy boyfriends in their dying town several hours away from the self-consciously pretty college town where she found herself now.
Oh, the coursework was OK and Tara was a good enough student that she had gotten admitted to this school and a couple of others, even winning a scholarship that paid a good part of her tuition, along with loans to cover the rest.
The problem was that the scholarship didn’t pay for incidentals beyond tuition, little things like food, clothing, cell phone bills, bus fare back home and the like. The dorm fees, which were tacked onto Tara’s loan balance, covered meals at the dining hall during the semester, but that left her to fend for herself during breaks.
Tara’s mother had managed to scrape together bus fare for her to go home over Christmas, not that the holidays in the trailer were exactly a great time with Mom’s latest boyfriend grabbing Tara’s ass every chance he got, but Spring Break was coming at the end of the week and Mom had told her she didn’t have the fare this time. Tara certainly didn’t; her bank account hovered between zero and overdrawn as it was.
So, Spring Break week would be eating whatever stuff she could find at the local food pantry that didn’t require cooking, since the microwave in her dorm room, which she had picked up for $5 at a garage sale was broken now and she didn’t have a car to get to the thrift store on the highway on the edge of town to find another one.
Beyond the hunger over class breaks, the most depressing thing about Tara’s poverty was how it impacted her college experience overall. This was supposed to be the best time of her life-parties, going out for pizza, joining a sorority-all the things the other students, who mostly came from very well off families, could afford with ease, but all of those activities cost money that Tara just didn’t have.
Most nights, Tara hung out in her dorm room with her roommate, Delia (Dee) Ortiz, like Tara, a poor kid raised by a single mom and, like Tara, the first in her family to attend college. Unlike Tara, though, she was a city girl, who grew up in a crowded city apartment, rather than a trailer. Despite that, they found much in common.
They made a great team, Tara and Delia, the freckled blonde with medium-sized breasts and the Puerto Rican girl with kinky black hair, olive skin and generous breasts. Tara could sense the boys’ eyes on them, following the two of them hungrily as they walked to classes or the dining hall.
She wondered idly if one of them would invite her to a nice dinner or a fraternity party, but most of them lacked the courage to approach a girl unless they were drunk and Tara wasn’t hanging out at the places where these boys drank.
Tara lay down on her bed and hugged the small stuffed dog that lay next to her pillow. ‘My life is such a fucking disaster,’ she thought.
She heard footsteps approaching. The door opened. “That fucking bitch!” Tara heard in the unmistakable Bronx inflection of her roommate.
“Who’s a fucking bitch now, Dee?” Tara asked, sitting up.
Delia threw her backpack down onto her bed, not even bothering to wipe the dampness from the melting snow off of it. Her winter jacket soon joined it. “That fucking bitch Jess Danvers, that’s who,” she spat.
“What did she do now?”
“So, I’m sitting with her and a couple of others from my Poli Sci class and she says, oh so sweetly, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, ‘What are you doing for Spring Break, Delia?’”.
Tara nodded. “So I tell her, ‘Hanging around here.’ She looks at me like I’m some kind of hopeless case and says, ‘Rachel and I are going to Cancun. You should join us; it’s really great, warm sand, lots of cute guys and the drinking age is 18.’”
“She knows you’re broke right? Like you don’t even have bus fare back to the city, never mind airfare to fucking Cancun?”
“Of course she knows. She just did it to rub it in. Her father is some kind of big shot lawyer on Wall Street and she lives in a big house in Connecticut and drives her Beamer back and forth.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Tara said. “She only mentions it three times a day.”
Delia shook her head. “I’m so tired of this shit. Tired of being poor and tired of being looked down on by these rich bitches.”
“Me too,” Tara said. “People like us, we just don’t fit in here. I’m thinking about transferring to the community college near home. Try to find a job waitressing or some shit like that and go part time.”
Delia looked sad. “Don’t give up, Tara. You’re as smart as any of them, probably smarter. And I’d go crazy here if not for you.”
“I don’t know, Dee. I haven’t made any decision. Right now I’m just trying to get my course work done and find a way to feed myself when the dining hall shuts down for Break.”
“You and me both, Sis. Got any ideas?”
“We can check with the Financial Aid Office and see if they have any leads on jobs. Staying here and working some shit job for minimum wage isn’t exactly sipping margaritas by the pool in Cancun, but it beats starving.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Delia replied. “Let’s look on their web site.” She opened her laptop, something all students were required to have and included in her scholarship. Tara leaned over her, her hand touching Dee’s shoulder for support, as she scrolled slowly through the employment listings.
There were a few jobs waiting tables at a one or another of the local student hangouts. “Meh,” Delia said, “Grabbed at by frat boys all night long.”
“But the tips might be OK,” Tara said. “I’d think about it if we could work together.”
“The Dynamic Duo, right? The Two Musketeers! Fist bump, girlfriend!” She made a fist and stuck it out for Tara to punch, then continued scrolling.
Towards the bottom, one caught Tara’s eyes. “Discreet Personal Companions wanted. Excellent pay. Paid travel. Not just a job, an Adventure. Call Kelly,” she pointed as she read it aloud. There was a phone number.
“Sounds sketchy,” Delia said.
“Excellent pay, paid travel doesn’t sound good to you? Maybe we can get to Cancun and thumb our noses at Jess Danvers and her posse.”
“Yeah sure, more likely Cleveland or somewhere gross. Besides, what’s a ‘Personal Companion’?”
“No clue, girlfriend. But let’s call and find out.” Tara picked up her phone and began entering the number.
“You seriously going to call?” her roommate asked. “This looks like a scam.”
Tara paused. “Let’s just hear what this Kelly has to say. What harm can that do?”
“Suit yourself,” Delia replied.
Tara finished entering the number and pressed the green phone icon. It rang twice before a female voice answered. “This is Kelly Winters. How may I help you?”
Tara paused for a moment collecting her thoughts. “I’m calling about the ad for the job listed with the Pitcher College Financial Aid Office.
“And your name is?”
“Oh, sorry. Tara, Tara Malone. I’m a Freshman here. I’m with my roommate, Delia Ortiz and we’re looking for jobs over Spring Break, which is coming up next week.” Dee shook her head and made the crazy sign to say “Leave me out of this.”
“I see,” Kelly said. “May I ask how old you are?”
“We’re both eighteen,” Tara replied. “Dee’s a Freshman, too. We were wondering what this Personal Companion job is all about.”
“I’d be happy to speak with you about it,” Kelly said. “I’m here in town at the College Inn. Do you know it?” The College Inn was the place that wealthy parents stayed when they came to visit their offspring or to enjoy reunions with their old classmates.
“Yes, I know it,” Tara replied.
“Why don’t you meet me in the dining room there around 6:30? I can explain everything.”
“Neither of us can afford dinner there, I’m afraid,” Tara said.
“That’s no problem. It’s on me. No obligation on either side. We chat and see how things go. The worst that happens is you girls get a break from the same old dining hall food and we part ways. But I think we’ll hit it off and you’ll be intrigued by the opportunity. I’ll see you there. Just ask the Hostess for my table and she’ll take you there.”
“OK, we’ll see you there at 6:30,” Tara said, hanging up the phone.
Dee was shaking her head. “I’m not going. This is some kind of scam, I guarantee it.”
“They can’t scam us; we have no money.”
“I dunno, Tara, but something stinks about this.”
“It’s a free dinner. I’ve heard the food there is great and we could never afford it in a million years. We go, we listen and if it doesn’t sound good, we say thanks and that’s the end of it.”
Delia stood, edging over to the window. “It’s snowing out. You really want to go over there in this?”
“Come on, Dee, I really don’t want to go alone,” Tara pleaded.
Dee sighed. “Shit, I must be crazy, but OK, I’ll go with you.”
Tara hugged her friend. “You’re the best!” she said.
I wrote this story way back in the 2010s, so if any of the references seem dated that might explain it. Anyway, it's cold and dark, so wouldn't a trip to a luxurious mansion on a Caribbean island sound nice? It certainly did to Tara and her roommate Dee...
Thanks to Barb for reading this and providing encouragement and helpful suggestions. Who knew that college women these days wear leggings not sweatpants? I need to visit my local campus more often...
CHAPTER ONE
Tara Malone was staring out the window watching the fat flakes of snow drift slowly onto the campus walkway in front of her dorm. It was the fifth or maybe the sixth big snowfall of the season and it was still February, so at least a good month or more of lousy weather could be expected.
Tara’s Freshman year at Pitcher College, a very prestigious school in Upstate New York, was proving less rewarding than her expectations had led her to hope for when the fat envelope had arrived almost one year ago at the trailer she shared with her mother and her mother’s parade of scuzzy boyfriends in their dying town several hours away from the self-consciously pretty college town where she found herself now.
Oh, the coursework was OK and Tara was a good enough student that she had gotten admitted to this school and a couple of others, even winning a scholarship that paid a good part of her tuition, along with loans to cover the rest.
The problem was that the scholarship didn’t pay for incidentals beyond tuition, little things like food, clothing, cell phone bills, bus fare back home and the like. The dorm fees, which were tacked onto Tara’s loan balance, covered meals at the dining hall during the semester, but that left her to fend for herself during breaks.
Tara’s mother had managed to scrape together bus fare for her to go home over Christmas, not that the holidays in the trailer were exactly a great time with Mom’s latest boyfriend grabbing Tara’s ass every chance he got, but Spring Break was coming at the end of the week and Mom had told her she didn’t have the fare this time. Tara certainly didn’t; her bank account hovered between zero and overdrawn as it was.
So, Spring Break week would be eating whatever stuff she could find at the local food pantry that didn’t require cooking, since the microwave in her dorm room, which she had picked up for $5 at a garage sale was broken now and she didn’t have a car to get to the thrift store on the highway on the edge of town to find another one.
Beyond the hunger over class breaks, the most depressing thing about Tara’s poverty was how it impacted her college experience overall. This was supposed to be the best time of her life-parties, going out for pizza, joining a sorority-all the things the other students, who mostly came from very well off families, could afford with ease, but all of those activities cost money that Tara just didn’t have.
Most nights, Tara hung out in her dorm room with her roommate, Delia (Dee) Ortiz, like Tara, a poor kid raised by a single mom and, like Tara, the first in her family to attend college. Unlike Tara, though, she was a city girl, who grew up in a crowded city apartment, rather than a trailer. Despite that, they found much in common.
They made a great team, Tara and Delia, the freckled blonde with medium-sized breasts and the Puerto Rican girl with kinky black hair, olive skin and generous breasts. Tara could sense the boys’ eyes on them, following the two of them hungrily as they walked to classes or the dining hall.
She wondered idly if one of them would invite her to a nice dinner or a fraternity party, but most of them lacked the courage to approach a girl unless they were drunk and Tara wasn’t hanging out at the places where these boys drank.
Tara lay down on her bed and hugged the small stuffed dog that lay next to her pillow. ‘My life is such a fucking disaster,’ she thought.
She heard footsteps approaching. The door opened. “That fucking bitch!” Tara heard in the unmistakable Bronx inflection of her roommate.
“Who’s a fucking bitch now, Dee?” Tara asked, sitting up.
Delia threw her backpack down onto her bed, not even bothering to wipe the dampness from the melting snow off of it. Her winter jacket soon joined it. “That fucking bitch Jess Danvers, that’s who,” she spat.
“What did she do now?”
“So, I’m sitting with her and a couple of others from my Poli Sci class and she says, oh so sweetly, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, ‘What are you doing for Spring Break, Delia?’”.
Tara nodded. “So I tell her, ‘Hanging around here.’ She looks at me like I’m some kind of hopeless case and says, ‘Rachel and I are going to Cancun. You should join us; it’s really great, warm sand, lots of cute guys and the drinking age is 18.’”
“She knows you’re broke right? Like you don’t even have bus fare back to the city, never mind airfare to fucking Cancun?”
“Of course she knows. She just did it to rub it in. Her father is some kind of big shot lawyer on Wall Street and she lives in a big house in Connecticut and drives her Beamer back and forth.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Tara said. “She only mentions it three times a day.”
Delia shook her head. “I’m so tired of this shit. Tired of being poor and tired of being looked down on by these rich bitches.”
“Me too,” Tara said. “People like us, we just don’t fit in here. I’m thinking about transferring to the community college near home. Try to find a job waitressing or some shit like that and go part time.”
Delia looked sad. “Don’t give up, Tara. You’re as smart as any of them, probably smarter. And I’d go crazy here if not for you.”
“I don’t know, Dee. I haven’t made any decision. Right now I’m just trying to get my course work done and find a way to feed myself when the dining hall shuts down for Break.”
“You and me both, Sis. Got any ideas?”
“We can check with the Financial Aid Office and see if they have any leads on jobs. Staying here and working some shit job for minimum wage isn’t exactly sipping margaritas by the pool in Cancun, but it beats starving.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Delia replied. “Let’s look on their web site.” She opened her laptop, something all students were required to have and included in her scholarship. Tara leaned over her, her hand touching Dee’s shoulder for support, as she scrolled slowly through the employment listings.
There were a few jobs waiting tables at a one or another of the local student hangouts. “Meh,” Delia said, “Grabbed at by frat boys all night long.”
“But the tips might be OK,” Tara said. “I’d think about it if we could work together.”
“The Dynamic Duo, right? The Two Musketeers! Fist bump, girlfriend!” She made a fist and stuck it out for Tara to punch, then continued scrolling.
Towards the bottom, one caught Tara’s eyes. “Discreet Personal Companions wanted. Excellent pay. Paid travel. Not just a job, an Adventure. Call Kelly,” she pointed as she read it aloud. There was a phone number.
“Sounds sketchy,” Delia said.
“Excellent pay, paid travel doesn’t sound good to you? Maybe we can get to Cancun and thumb our noses at Jess Danvers and her posse.”
“Yeah sure, more likely Cleveland or somewhere gross. Besides, what’s a ‘Personal Companion’?”
“No clue, girlfriend. But let’s call and find out.” Tara picked up her phone and began entering the number.
“You seriously going to call?” her roommate asked. “This looks like a scam.”
Tara paused. “Let’s just hear what this Kelly has to say. What harm can that do?”
“Suit yourself,” Delia replied.
Tara finished entering the number and pressed the green phone icon. It rang twice before a female voice answered. “This is Kelly Winters. How may I help you?”
Tara paused for a moment collecting her thoughts. “I’m calling about the ad for the job listed with the Pitcher College Financial Aid Office.
“And your name is?”
“Oh, sorry. Tara, Tara Malone. I’m a Freshman here. I’m with my roommate, Delia Ortiz and we’re looking for jobs over Spring Break, which is coming up next week.” Dee shook her head and made the crazy sign to say “Leave me out of this.”
“I see,” Kelly said. “May I ask how old you are?”
“We’re both eighteen,” Tara replied. “Dee’s a Freshman, too. We were wondering what this Personal Companion job is all about.”
“I’d be happy to speak with you about it,” Kelly said. “I’m here in town at the College Inn. Do you know it?” The College Inn was the place that wealthy parents stayed when they came to visit their offspring or to enjoy reunions with their old classmates.
“Yes, I know it,” Tara replied.
“Why don’t you meet me in the dining room there around 6:30? I can explain everything.”
“Neither of us can afford dinner there, I’m afraid,” Tara said.
“That’s no problem. It’s on me. No obligation on either side. We chat and see how things go. The worst that happens is you girls get a break from the same old dining hall food and we part ways. But I think we’ll hit it off and you’ll be intrigued by the opportunity. I’ll see you there. Just ask the Hostess for my table and she’ll take you there.”
“OK, we’ll see you there at 6:30,” Tara said, hanging up the phone.
Dee was shaking her head. “I’m not going. This is some kind of scam, I guarantee it.”
“They can’t scam us; we have no money.”
“I dunno, Tara, but something stinks about this.”
“It’s a free dinner. I’ve heard the food there is great and we could never afford it in a million years. We go, we listen and if it doesn’t sound good, we say thanks and that’s the end of it.”
Delia stood, edging over to the window. “It’s snowing out. You really want to go over there in this?”
“Come on, Dee, I really don’t want to go alone,” Tara pleaded.
Dee sighed. “Shit, I must be crazy, but OK, I’ll go with you.”
Tara hugged her friend. “You’re the best!” she said.
