Floss

Alexandra Simmons was sprawled out on her mattress, her head and right arm hanging over the side of the bed. Her chin was pointed at the ceiling and her long hair was tickling the tiles beneath her. Alex’s hair was soft and light. It was that color that is somewhere between blonde and brunette, but didn’t really belong to either category. She was chewing bubblegum and staring up at the floor. As she admired a scuff mark, no doubt made by her new sneakers, she realized just how very uncomfortable lying like this was.

            As Alex pushed off the floor and slumped onto the bed, she looked across the room where her roommate was saying rhyming words out loud. Teresa Robinson was the perfect roommate. Alex couldn’t have done better if she’d made the selection herself. They had so much in common, from their dress size to their shoe size, and their taste in movies to their taste in music. Teresa played the guitar, and Alex loved to sing. So now they were going to start a two-woman  band.

            Teresa put herself up to the task of writing the lyrics to their first song. She was sitting at her desk chewing the heck out of a poor pencil. Her dark hair had the tell tale bump of a pony tail that had recently been removed and was seriously frizzed out at the ends. She ran her fingers through her hair, they got stuck, making her only that much more frustrated.  Rhyming was harder than she had anticipated. She just could not find a suitable rhyme for the word “senseless.” The more she thought about it, the more determined she got to find the perfect word.

            “Your love made me senseless, with you I will fence less,” She tried. “Alex you’ve gotta help me with this one.”

            “No way,” Alex said, propping herself up on one elbow to get a better look at her friend. “This is your song, remember. You write the words, I make up the tune. Unless you want to trade,” she added eagerly.

            Teresa bit down harder on her pencil not justifying Alex with an answer. The “fence less” rhyme sounded the best so far, and that was what made her so angry. It was better than “my eyes are now lens-less” and “honey never ever rinse less” by far. But it still didn’t sound quite right, or even close, for that matter. This song would be stupid if she used any of those rhymes.

            “Come on,” she pleaded with Alex, “Don’t you want our first song to be good? How else are we gonna pick up men? This song has to be perfect.”

            Alex yawned and looked at the alarm clock which told her it was nearly 1:30 in the morning. Teresa loved to stay up late. Alex didn’t mind, but her class started at 8:00 the next morning, and anything less six hours of sleep would render her a zombie the next day.

            “ Well, I want a boyfriend as much as you,” she said as she changed into her pajamas, “but maybe you should scratch that line and try something else. I just want to go to sleep, but you won’t let me turn the light off.”

            “Alex, I don’t want to argue right now,” Teresa argued, “I like that line and I’m not going to bed until I find a rhyme. So are you going to help me or not?”

            Alex yawned again and let out a firm, “Not.” She defiantly flipped the lights off and crawled under her covers. Teresa was less than thrilled by this answer. She turned her desk light on and pointed it right at Alex’s bed, in the pillow area.

            “Mince-less, pence-less, wince-less . . .”

            Alex groaned. “I would wince less if you would turn that thing off and go to sleep. But I’m too tired to fight you right now. Can you point that somewhere else? I can’t even see what you’re doing, and that scares me. You’ve kind of left me defenseless.”

            Teresa shouted and jumped up, knocking her desk chair to the ground. She started hopping up and down clapping her hands eagerly.

            “You are a genius! That’s it! Oh! I could just kiss you!” Teresa exclaimed.

            “Please don’t,” Alex muttered under her breath.

“Your love made me senseless; your touch left me defenseless!”

            “Good night, Teresa.”

            Teresa flipped the lamp off and jumped into her own bed.

            “Good night, Alex.”

            Chad Hansen was also up at 1:30 that morning. Unlike the girls, his eyes were glued to a small monitor, and his hands to a game controller.  There was no way he was going to bed before he solved this puzzle, which was proving to be difficult. He was losing his touch. How many times had he won Tomb Raider in the past? And now he couldn’t even pass this one little puzzle.  As he lost yet again, Chad cried out in frustration and hit his controller against the ground. It was after this outburst that Chad remembered he shared a room.

Chad chanced a glance over to check that his roommate, Tyler, was still snoring away, and then went straight back to his game. He had done this before, and he could do it again. He just needed to keep a clear mind and think back to the days at his childhood home and the long hours spent with the heroine of Tomb Raider.

            “Come on, Lara,” he said to the 3D character on the screen, “We can do it this time.”

            Alex returned from her class to find Teresa still sleeping snugly in her bed. It wasn’t fair that Teresa was the one that kept Alex up all night and now she got to sleep in. She dropped her bag loudly to the floor, hoping to wake the sleeping beauty. Teresa turned over in her bed.

            “Wakey, wakey!” Alex hollered, very close to Teresa’s head. Teresa moaned and put a pillow over her ear.

            “It’s nine o’clock: Time to wake up and start a new day!”

            Teresa rolled to face Alex, and sat up slightly, “Do you want me to hit you? Go away.”

            “Band practice?” Alex said, slyly.

            With just these two words, Teresa sprang from her covers enthusiastically and started throwing off her pajamas. She was dressed in less than a minute.

            “Let’s do this thing!” Teresa said. “Now that we’ve got words, we need music. The sooner, the better. As soon as we make a name for ourselves, guys will flock to us.”