It was finally time for spring break and I surely needed it. It was a rough schedule that year, the first year teaching always is. I estimated about 300 students in all my classes combined and they had run me ragged. Statistics isn't the easiest of college courses to teach anyway, but in reviewing my class averages with more experienced professors it turned out my students were right on par so I was pleased. Still, a week off from schoolwork, from grading papers and from preparing lessons was exactly what I needed.
I had just arrived home from class on that Friday, just before nightfall because I had a late class, not more than twenty minutes before when Carissa called. She is my one and only step-sister who had just started her junior year in college.
"Hey Brian," she started before I could even say hello. I popped a microwave macaroni and cheese meal in. "What are your plans for the spring break?"
"Plans?" I asked. I really hadn't thought about it more than days on end in my swimming pool out back. "Nothing really. Just planning to lazily lay around the house. You? I bet you're going off to one of them crazy beach scenes no doubt."
She laughed on the other end but it seemed a distracted, not-wholly-felt laugh. I heard a few other girls' voices in the background as well. "Well, I was."
"And you're not now? What happened?"
"Long story short. A friend who had sworn to take care of everything, the arrangements and all, turned out to be a big flop. She took most of our money and now my friends and I are all packed to go, spent all our money on getting ready, that kind of thing but we don't have anyplace to spend the week."
"Bummer," I replied, attempting to sound like a kid again. We were nearly five years apart but I had always done my best to relate to her on her level. Still, after years of studying with stuffy-shirt mathematicians in my masters program, it wasn't easy to pull off any more.
"Yeah, big time. The girls don't want to spend the week with their families and we can't be caught dead in the dorms or we'll be socially ruined so... I was thinking...," Carissa always had the tendency to never actually ask for what she was wanting but instead let others assume it. She wouldn't admit to it but I figured it was her way to save face if she was turned down.
"You want to come to my place for the week, is that it?"
"Well, if you're inviting? You're pool's big enough for like four of us, right?" I was taken back a bit. My step-sister had stayed at my place a time or two before when she just needed a place to get away from campus life for a night or whatnot. It was the nice thing about having my own house, no roommate, that type of thing. But four of them?
"Four? I thought you were talking about just yourself. There's not enough beds for you all. Hell, there's not even an extra bedroom. The other two rooms are setup for the office and workout spaces now." There was no way I was going to get any peace with five headstrong college girls running around the place.
"There're the couches, come on, Brian. Don't be a stick. Help me out here, I've already told them you'd be cool with it. Don't make me look bad, please!"
"Oh what the hell." She had always been able to manipulate me ever since our parents had gotten married when she was eleven. Though I had grown up an only child for 15 years prior, something about that petite blond-haired smiling face, with her sparkling honey eyes, just made me crazy about her. We had taken to each other like milk and cookies. Even after our parents had divorced a year later, she had easily convinced her mom to let me stay until I went off to college; my own father having run off with his secretary to South America after the affair was found out. Fortunately, I share his name so I got access to all his accounts, giving myself a decent living throughout college even before I started working.
"Oh, thank you Brian. You're the best. See you fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen? It's like two hours from your school to here."
"I always have confidence in you, bro. See you soon. Kisses," and with that she hung up the phone.
*****
I had just hung up from the local pizza delivery, putting in an order for delivery to serve five when I saw the lights of a sedan pull up in my driveway. Carissa had missed her estimate by all of three minutes. Like school kids on a field trip, the car emptied in a flood and I was only just arriving at the door when the bell rang wildly.