By Id
The next day brought AP Biology and the promise of seeing Tara again after our evening buffet encounter. Considering the note we left on, I was pretty confident that my chances of getting together with Tara again were relatively high. However, it had been my experience that women changed like the wind, and I wasn’t going to stake the homestead on a date with Tara quite yet.
Being the good student that I am, I always arrived early to class, especially if it’s first thing in the morning, and Biology was. Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t that I especially liked my classes (I didn’t, especially Biology), but I didn’t have a very wide circle of friends, and it was always warmer in a classroom in the morning anyway. When I walked into the room I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that only the teacher, the elderly and slightly comical Mr. Phillins, was in the room. Tara never arrived as early as I did (okay, okay, no one arrived as early as I did), as she was always chatting away in the student parking lot with her clique of friends, most of whom I held a slight, if not great, disdain for. You know how I’m talking about, that popular athletic crowd that saw school as one giant party, rather than a place to actually learn something.
After a few minutes, the first bell rang and the class started to trickle into the room. Tara was about the tenth person to arrive. My heart beat ever so slightly faster as she made eye contact with me, and I silently prayed that it was the same with her. Today she was wearing a water polo sweatshirt and some sweatpants made of that stiffer, sort of shimmery fabric that seems to be so popular. Privately I wondered if perhaps her choice of wardrobe was in some way connected with last night’s large meal. Could all that cake have made her waistline slightly larger than was comfortable? She certainly wasn’t any slimmer, as her ample waistline attested, even despite the bulky clothing. I could only hope so within the inner recesses of my heart.
I smiled at Tara and she returned the gesture with one of her brilliant, but fleeting, grins, but soon averted her gaze as more people were coming in. Her seat was clear on the other side of the room and by the time I had convinced myself that I should go over and talk to her, the second bell rang and my window of opportunity was gone.
Let me take this opportunity to describe Tara’s background in a little more detail, just so you get a better picture of her. Tara’s last name, Kelly, was an Irish surname, a fact that I was well aware of. Being an Irish-American myself, after all, my parents had named me Liam, I had taken a great shine to the country and anything even remotely connected with it. Irish girls, in particular, had piqued my interest, so Tara was even more alluring to me, despite her larger size and rounder form. She was acutely aware of her Irish heritage, as she had once jokingly commented how her name means a hill in Ireland, albeit the seat of the Gaelic kings prior to British subjugation of the Emerald Isle (can you tell I’d done my reading on the subject?). Occasionally I’d kid her about the fact that we were really the scum of the earth and she’d laugh and say it was true. I’d heard that, like me, she’d absolutely aced the AP test for European history, so I guess that at least the Irish seem to have good heads on their shoulders these days.
As class began, I couldn’t help but allow my eyes wander over to Tara’s form two rows in front of me to the left. Her round, chunky, beautifully curved body was nothing short of angelic to my eyes. Every glimpse drove me wilder than the last. And every time the only thing that broke my longing gaze was Tara looking over her shoulder…at me. We’d both quickly return our eyes to our notes with embarrassment, but it didn’t take long before I was glancing over at Tara again. Once or twice I actually caught her looking at me, rather than the other way around, but she quickly turned back around again whenever I’d make eye contact with her. It sort of felt like we were on exhibit for everyone in the class, but, upon retrospection, I think we were part of only a dozen people who weren’t asleep during the first period class, so I doubt anyone actually saw us.
When class was over, I gathered my things and valiantly tried to muster my courage to approach Tara and at least say hello and ask how she was doing. However, by the time I was ready, I just caught Tara skittering out the door and into the hall. Her body jiggled and bounced lusciously as she walked, arousing me for a moment or two. She was still rather sprightly, despite her girth, yet another plus in her favor. I was relieved and disappointed that I hadn’t gotten to talk with Tara again, but c’est la vie. I figured that I’d use the extra time to plan out exactly what I wanted to say to Tara. As I was active in a few, select clubs, I wouldn’t have the opportunity of seeing Tara at lunch and we didn’t have Biology again until Friday (suffice it to say our high school had one of the most complex and annoying bell schedules to the unfamiliar visitor).
Friday rolled around before I knew it and once more I was in Biology class bright and early, though half awake. Shortly after my arrival, Mr. Phillins left me to go attend to talk to a physics teacher, jokingly charging me with protection of the room until he returned.
About half a minute later I was surprised to hear the door open. I figured it had to be someone coming in for tutoring. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was Tara in the doorway! My carefully laid plans for the conversation suddenly vanished, but I figured my wit would hold me through. Or so I hoped, anyway.
“Hi Tara,” I said with a smile.
“Oh, hi Liam. You always come this early?” Tara asked as she shut the door behind her. She was wearing a sweatshirt and hip-hugging jeans as it was always cold in the morning. However, since it usually warmed up in the afternoon, I’d have placed $20 on her wearing a t-shirt that highlighted all her curves underneath the sweatshirt. Sadly I didn’t think I’d have the chance to see it today. Her round, womanly hips swayed sexily as she walked over to her seat. Her jeans were so tight across her butt that I could swear I could make out the outline of her panties. I wondered if Tara was still a size 16, or if she had perhaps graduated to bigger britches. The thought was tortuously arousing.
I seriously doubted that the thought of her encountering me alone hadn’t entered her mind when she’d decided to come in early. “Yeah. Don’t have anywhere else to be. Besides, it’s warmer in the morning in here,” I said.
“I’ll say! It’s freezing in the student parking lot half the time,” Tara replied, as she set her things down at her seat, “Maybe I aught to come in here more often.”
“Oh, I’m sure the company’s much better out there,” I said, testing the waters between us ever so subtly. Hey, reading Pride And Prejudice can actually teach you something: the art of circumlocution!
“I don’t know about that. I think I’d take a well-mannered, kind, intelligent guy over a dozen rude, shallow girls any day of the week,” Tara said with a smile. She was making her way over to where I was and I was headed towards her, compelled by some freak force. I felt the tension between us building slightly.
“Well if I happen to see anyone who fits that profile, I’ll tell him you’re in the market. People like that are hard to find these days,” I replied with a smile.
Tara and I were now about an arm’s distance away from each other. Her round, soft gut was right there, ready for my caress, inviting me to reach out and touch it. “Well, to tell the truth, I think I might already have someone in mind,” Tara said, her green eyes sparkling as she and I inched closer to one another. I knew something was about to happen as we drew closer to one another. That force of unknown origin that always seized me whenever I was around Tara took hold of my arms and started to extend them towards her tubby, inviting form.
At that moment, we both heard the door open and Mr. Phillins strode into the room, concentrated on some memo. Tara immediately backed away from me, and I followed suit. I had a feeling that Tara’s past romantic experience made her a little wary of entering a public relationship with another guy, at least so quickly, anyway. But then again, it’s not exactly cool for a teacher to catch you making out either.
“Thanks for explaining that whole thing on the law of segregation, Liam,” Tara said, trying to construct a pretense, as flimsy as it may be.
“No problem, any time, Tara,” I replied as the first bell rang and Tara headed back to her seat.
There was hope for me now. Tara obviously felt the same way I did. I figured I shouldn’t push and decided to just take things as they came. Needless to say, we were still glancing back and forth at one another throughout class, though with the same amount of embarrassment as before.
When class ended, Tara gave me a little wave but still didn’t wait for me before leaving. At least I’m making progress, I thought. I then knew why it was said that hope springs eternal.
“Hey, Liam! You ready for Schlesinger’s test on Jacksonian Democracy?” someone said to me.
“That’s today!” I exclaimed. I had completely forgotten about it in the midst of all my daydreaming about Tara and US History was next period. “Well, let’s hope I can wing it.”
***
Luckily I did, as I had gotten ahead in the textbook before that fateful Tuesday at Hometown Buffet. But with school behind me, I had the entire weekend to let my mind wander to the memory of Tara. I was stuck in sort of a no man’s land. Whenever I was away from Tara, I’d think about her all the time and how sexy all her curves were, but whenever I was near her I had no way to act on those emotions. Being closer to Tara, but not yet having her, made things all the more painful.
Monday morning rolled around, and with it, Biology class. Anticipation was running high and I patiently waited before class for Tara, hoping that she might come in early, knowing I’d be there. But, to my dismay, she didn’t appear in the doorway before the first bell. By the time she did show up, there were already a dozen people in the room, and I hardly expected anything to happen. After all, if she’d been that shy in front of Mr. Phillins, I’d be surprised if she waved at me in front of her peers like she had on Friday.
But, then again, I never did quite have women pinned down. To my surprise, Tara strode across the room in her water polo sweatshirt and sweats that just covered her beautiful figure. Unlike previous outfits, this one left less, but more than I would have liked, to imagination. Her belly threatened to peek out from under the sweatshirt, and I was praying to whatever deity was listening that I might catch a glimpse of that soft, white roll of fat.
“Hey Liam. Coming to the game tomorrow?” Tara asked.
“Game?” I asked, “What game?”
“The water polo game, silly! It’s the first one of the season!” Tara said.
What a golden opportunity this was! I had completely forgotten that winter sports were starting up and that girls’ water polo was one of them. My calendar was immediately cleared. I decided right then and there it would take nothing short of a relative’s death to have me skip tomorrow’s game.
“Well, maybe,” I said, “It depends on how much work I have to do.”
“Oh, okay,” Tara said, slightly dejected, “Well, if you can make it, that’d be great.”
“What time does it start?” I said.
“Three.”
“Well, I might be able to make it.”
“Really?” Tara said, her eyes lighting up. She was obviously excited about the prospect of me coming to see her play.
“Yeah, well, I’ll have to move a couple things around, but I think I should be able to swing down and catch you guys.”
“Great! See you tomorrow then.”
My beauty spun around and headed back to her seat and I watched her movement in covert rapture. Not only was I going to get to see Tara play, but I’d finally be able to see one of the noblest sports ever invented, after hockey, of course. I mean, let’s face it. What’s not to like about a sport where women wear swimsuits and beat one another to a pulp? And the fact that the girl who was perhaps the love of my life played it made the sport twice as fun! This was certainly going to be interesting!
***
I arrived at the high school swimming pool at just past three in the afternoon the next day. I’d been running slightly late getting out of the house, convincing my mom that, yes, it really was all that important that I go to this game. She was slightly skeptical, as I was the last person to exhibit any sort of school pride. I didn’t go to high school football games, and I ditched rallies whenever I could. But, with enough talking, I was able to get her to let me go, as long as I was back before dinner and I was sure I’d get all my work done. The latter was a piece of cake, as I’d used much of my lunch period to get ahead on the afternoon’s work in anticipation of today’s event.
When I arrived at the pool, the game had already started. I was surprised to see a lack of spectators, aside from the obligatory parents and the JV and freshman team players. There were only perhaps eighteen other people there, and I settled down in the cold, metal bleachers in the afternoon sun (for those of you who don’t know, it’s still warm in California, even in December). Having never gone to a water polo game before, I hadn’t the slightest idea of what was going on.
“Liam! Is that you?” I heard from behind me.
Turning around, I saw a friend of mine gingerly hopping down the bleachers towards me. It was Patricia, or Patsy, Fagan, another Irish Catholic who went to my church. Aside from myself, she was probably the only person at our high school who actually got excited about St. Patrick’s Day. We had a couple of the same classes together this year and usually saw each other at mass. Unlike Tara, she was thin and short, perhaps five feet six inches. While she was a nice girl, it had always been a strictly friendly relationship between us for a variety of reasons.
“Well hello Patsy Fagan, you can hear the boys all cry!” I said as she plopped down next to me.
“Oh not that again!” the saucy flaxen haired girl said as she flung her hair over her shoulder. It was a running joke between us that I always greeted her with the opening line of the refrain of an Irish song called, “Hello Patsy Fagan”. She was furious at her parents ever since I’d started with it for naming her after a song, but I had to take my openings where I could get them.
“What can I say? I can’t resist a good opportunity,” I replied, “Come out to support the team?”
“No, silly! I’m on the team!” Patsy retorted, giving me a shove, “Don’t you remember!”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. You’ve bugged me for two years to come to games,” I said, “Perhaps that’s why you’re wearing the same sweat suit as everyone else.”
“Duh! Well at least you finally came, you hypocrite,” Patsy said.
“Hypocrite! Why that’s the first time this month you’ve called me that. How nice of you.”
Patsy rolled her eyes. “Well you should have come a lot sooner. ‘It’s such a great sport’, ‘I love water polo’, ‘It’s the best thing we have on campus’. All that and more! And you never came out for a single game!”
Did I forget to mention that Patsy had inherited that prototypical self-righteous Irish temper? Maybe that was why she hadn’t held a boyfriend for more than three months in the last three years, now that I think about it…
“Consider myself upbraided,” I said, for lack of something better to say, “Hey…wait a second. Why aren’t you playing?”
“Oh, the coach hates me,” Patsy started in.
“I wonder why,” I cut in.
Patsy simply glared. “The coach hates me, and I’m playing JV still this year. But next year she’ll have to put me on varsity. Luckily the JV coach thinks I’m great.”
“I’m sure she’ll see the light soon enough,” I said, “But there’s always been one problem with this sport.”
“What?”
“It’s just so cruel on the horses.”
“Shove off!” Patsy said, “Anyway, I suppose you came out to see me play.”
“Oh, no,” I said, before I could stop myself, realizing the inevitable question.
“Really? Then who are you here to see?” Patsy queried.
I thought fast. “No one in particular. Just out to support the team in general,” I said casually.
“Sure you are! I’ll bet you’ve got the hots for one of the girls on the team,” Patsy said, sensing victory.
“It certainly isn’t you,” I shot back.
Patsy huffed. “Fine then.”
I suddenly realized then that in the midst of talking to Patsy I’d completely forgotten that Tara was playing. I turned my attention back to the game. However, that didn’t last more than five seconds before Patsy cut into my thoughts once more.
“I’ll bet you haven’t the slightest idea how it works, do you?” Patsy said.
“How what works?” I said.
“The game. Want me to explain it?”
“Fine, you win.”
So for the whole of two seven minute periods, plus stop time, two time outs, and enough time in between periods for the teams to switch ends of the pool (which is a lot longer than it sounds when you’ve got an Irish girl babbling in your ear), I was lectured to the ins and outs, ups and downs, secrets and strategies, and everything else you’d ever really want to know, or never wanted to know at all, about water polo. Unbelievable, Patsy never lost her breath through out all of this, despite the fact she was talking about a mile a minute.
“Any questions?” Patsy finally finished up.
“If I ever even had one enter my mind Patsy, I think you covered it in that extensive review of your fine sport,” I said, having actually gotten most of what she said, while still watching the game and deducing the rules on my own. I then suddenly thought of something, “But you neglected to answer one thing.”
“I did?” Patsy said, in disbelief.
“Yeah, how good are we?”
“Well it’s the first game of the season. We can’t exactly be in first place yet,” Patsy retorted, “But I’d say we’ll probably make the playoffs this year. We have a good varsity squad on the whole.”
“How’s our goalie?” I said, carefully slipping in the question and then following it up so it wouldn’t stand out, “If water polo is anything like hockey—”
“Which it certainly is not!” Patsy interjected.
“—Goal tending is half the game,” I finished.
“Well, Tara, you know Tara, right? She’s pretty good. I mean, not the best, but she stops most of her shots. Um…” Patsy said obviously wrestling with the subject a little bit, “Well, she’s sort of got an edge on everyone else, to be honest.”
“‘An edge’,” I repeated.
“Yeah, well…uh,” Patsy said, “I think the best way to put it is that she…covers more of the goal, you know what I mean?”
Of course! Patsy was a little uncomfortable talking about Tara’s extra girth, but, being a girl who never ignored the facts, she wasn’t about to sidestep the issue. Hey, she might be loud and annoying, but she did have a sense of decorum.
“Yeah, I get your drift,” I said, “Hey, Secretariat had twice the size of a normal horse’s heart. And look where it got him!”
“A true Irishman!” Patsy exclaimed, “Thinking about horse racing at a water polo game!”
“What can I say? We had to outrun the British somehow.”
“Hey, Liam, I’ve got to go get ready for my game. I think you know enough now to hold your own,” Patsy said, standing up and making her way down the bleachers.
“Go vanquish your adversaries!” I said as she nimbly jumped to the ground from the second step.
“Why can’t you just say, ‘Go get ’em’, like a regular person?” Patsy said in frustration and hurried off. If there was one thing that always got under her skin, it was grandiloquence. I did it as much as possible when she was around.
Okay, back to Tara (after all, this is a story about Tara, right?). We were in the third of four seven-minute periods to go with our high school winning 5-1. Tara had played nearly flawlessly during the game. For those of you who have never seen a water polo game played, let me tell you that it takes a great amount of skill and endurance, especially should you happen to be playing goalie as you never get a substitute. It’s also a very rough sport and, even though I hadn’t seen an entire game yet, I’d say that almost every person, save the two goalies, had already nearly been drowned. But, as no one seemed phased by it and you got a free pass if that, or something like it occurred, it seemed to be a part of the game and no one got up in arms about it.
Unfortunately, Tara’s beautiful brown hair was all bunched up under a swim cap and I could only get a good look at her stunning figure when she went up to make a save. Sadly, the team we were playing seemed to be one of the worse teams and Tara didn’t have to make too many.
Anyway, I tracked Tara’s movements with rapture (not hard as she didn’t stray much from the goal) and actually got into the game a bit after a while. We wound up winning 11-2 and first blood was ours in the new season. The best moment, however, was when both teams got out of the pool. As Tara hauled herself out of the pool seemingly without effort, I got an excellent look at exactly how tight her swimsuit was. And let me tell you, that sucker was like a second skin! One could actually make out each of her butt cheeks (they were just inside the confines of the bathing suit, threatening to reveal themselves), which jiggled ever so delightfully as she walked down the customary end-of-game handshake. Tara’s paunch was much more pronounced in the confines of the swimsuit, suspended as a result of the tension. It had the appearance of a large sphere of flesh. Most notably, however, her thighs were in full view, and what a view it was! While still thick and chunky, there wasn’t a speck of cellulite on them, a perfectly admirable quality in my eyes. Like the rest of her body, they were soft and milky white. I was nearly driven out of my mind by such a sight.
Unfortunately though, the team had an end-of-game debriefing to attend to in the locker room, so I figured that I’d watch the JV game, just now starting until Tara came out. I also realized that I’d get to see Patsy play a bit, which wouldn’t be all that bad. About five minutes in, however, I nearly jumped out of my skin when my cell phone vibrator went off. I always left it on, but rarely received any calls as only my family had the number. Much to my chagrin, it was my mother, who said that I needed to be home in twenty minutes. After about two minutes of protest I lost the battle and went home in despair.
But, I realized as I was driving home, the day hadn’t been a total waste. Tara had to have seen me sitting there, so she knew I had come. It was then that I realized I’d spent half the time with Patsy. What was Tara going to think? This was certainly not going to make my job any easier. But luckily, tomorrow morning brought with it Biology and a chance for me to save face.