Confessions from a Ranger's Roommate

Teodora smiled from finishing her last class before Thanksgiving break. Tonight would be the Rangers quick Thanksgiving lunch with the families and then she would fly north to Maine to join her own family, Manny's family at Jerome's adopted parents place for Thanksgiving Day dinner.

A text buzzed in her purse so she dug for her phone. "Ha. Party boy's up," she laughed at Michael. They had no game last night so he had done some clubbing and drinking and was still sleeping as Teodora went to her one class around nine. Coffee please? She laughed at his text and suddenly squinted. There was a great Vietnamese food place nearby and Michael was always interested in her more worldly cuisine knowledge. Why not? She ordered two Vietnamese iced coffees and knew he had to try Vietnamese desert.
Making it back to the apartment, she opened the door and hollered, "COFFEE'S HERE!" She yelled at the top of her lungs.
He came in slowly and picked up the to-go glass. "What kind of coffee?" Michael asked, swirling it around. "Its not regular coffee."
"Vietnamese iced coffee. Ca phe sua da," she said and he cocked his head.
Taking the straw, he swirled it around and lifted it to his lips. "Huh!" He said, obviously pleased. "What else you get?"

"Maybe we won't eat it today but its real good. Its like sticky sweet rice with beans, called che dau trang, so Vietnamese sweet desert. Sounds weird but its real good," Teodora said as he drank his iced coffee. He looked at her, then reached into a drawer for a fork. "We'll probably have pie later!" She laughed as he opened the Styrofoam. "Seriously you pig!"
He tasted the rice and moaned. "Stop bringing stuff like this home!"
"I told you not to eat it!" Teodora yelled back. "Jesus, you freaking boy! Put that away and save room for dinner!" She left to drop her bag off in her room and came back to see the fridge door still open. "MICHAEL DEL ZOTTO!"
He shut the door and stuck out his tongue, with rice coating his entire tongue.

"Oh that's attractive. Keep it stuck out, that'll attract a girlfriend," Teodora laughed. Michael retracted his tongue and smiled at her as he swallowed the desert. "Come on, get showered party boy." He left to shower as she checked her flight information for tonight's plane ride.
Teodora puttered around the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher, sipping her iced coffee and snuck one bite of Vienamese desert in before Michael came out looking stylish like usual. He wrapped a black scarf around his neck and buttoned his coat as they walked out. Snow had started to fall and Teodora tipped her head up towards the sky. "You're lucky you've got pretty snow New York or else I'd entirely hate you!"
"I need to take you ice skating around the Rockefeller Center." He paused. "First I need to teach you how to skate. I still haven't taken you around the ice."
She laughed. "Yeah, teaching me to skate is key. Especially since this is the first town I've lived in that was cold enough to snow." They walked to his car since the dinner was at Dan Girardi's house in Westchester which was a bit out of the city.

Her phone buzzed and she saw it was a news update from a news app on her phone. She read through a few of them when Michael interrupted her thoughts. "Not school?" Still deep into reading the article, she shook her head no once. "Lina?"
"No," she replied and scowled at the news. "North Korea's up to its old feud with South Korea and killed some people with their ships. Awesome. Protests are going on in Afghanistan from parliamentary elections. No surprise there but that still sucks."
"No Lina?" Michael asked.
She shook her head. "Really doubt it. She's not in Kabul." Done with depressing news, Teodora reached to turn on Pandora and selected a 90's pop list. "NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK THE RIGHT STUFF!" She yelled as the melody started. As they were exaggerently singing the oh part of the song, they pulled into Dan's driveway.

Teodora got out of the car and saw a familiar car coming down the street. "Get Lundqvist when he comes out," she suggested and Michael immediately stooped to form a snowball. He pulled in with his girlfriend and got out to say hi and instead was pelted with two snowballs.
"So much for saying hi!" He laughed and dusted his front.
"A dressy outfit with a tie? This isn't pre hockey game!" She teased him and waved hi to Therese, his future wife. Her English wasn't as good as Henrik's but they managed well, especially since Teodora's English used to be worse than Therese's.

Therese got out and greeted her with a hug. "No O Chem today?" She asked hopefully. Everyone on the team, even the wives and girlfriends-and even her practice buddy Jake Biron knew that O Chem was a class to avoid if one could.
Teodora laughed and agreed, "No O Chem today. No hard tests for awhile either."

"Teo! What's Spanish for snow?" Michael asked.
"Nieve, why?" she asked and sucked in when snow was dumped down her back. Teodora spun and managed to grab his scarf and wrested it away from him. "Whatcha gonna do now roomie?" She laughed.
"Not give you a ride to the airport!" He shot back.

Teodora grinned at Henrik. "He'll give me a ride!" She laughed victoriously and pitched the balled up scarf into the snow. "Run!" She told Therese and they bolted into the house, giggling.
Dan was laughing as they came in and took their shoes off. "Nice job throwing DZ's scarf in the snow," he grinned at her.
"You need someone in the kitchen?" Teodora asked. "I can help if you want."
"Uh..." he mused, checking his watch. "Pam's currently doing the deserts. I have the dinner duties but I have some time."
She nodded and handed him her coat. "I can go help with both if you want," she said and headed into the kitchen.

"Stay out-oh hello hun!" Pam giggled at her. "Thought you were a boy pestering me for food. "There's this good bottled ginger ale I knew you'd like sitting on the deck. Has ginger chunks at the bottom. Alcohol's in the same place when Michael comes in."
Teodora started to peel green apples for apple pies as she said, "Oh, he's probably still getting his scarf that I threw in the snow."

Pam laughed. "Nice! You bring Alex too?"
"Nah, he went back to San Francisco," Teodora replied. "I think some LA based cousins are coming in town and I think Lina's family's joining them too."
"No other family in America?" Pam asked.
"Just us and Lina's family. The rest stayed behind in England," Teodora replied. "Though on my Mom's side they're all in California."
"Speaking of your cousin, what are you going to tell your parents tonight about her not coming with you?" Pam asked.
Teodora shrugged. "Was busy. After that, they can call Lina and she can be the one to sweat about it."
Pam nodded in approval. "Looks like you got out of the snow Michael," she smiled as he came in.

"Yeah, my jerk roommate threw my scarf in the snow," he said and slung an arm around Teodora's waist. "Love her so much you know."
"Quit crying snow boy. You grew up to it, you should be immune," she shot back. "Pam says boys get out of the kitchen and I know you." He laughed and slid open the deck door to get a beer. "I got him this Vietnamese desert thing, tell him not to touch it and next thing I know, he's already digging into it."
Pam looked at her. "Hun, you know all sorts of different food which is bad because you keep giving us amazing sweet stuff. Like that sweet rice milk stuff you brought me once."
"Hochata?" Teodora laughed. "I can live off that stuff, no lie."
"She brought me Vietnamese iced coffee today. Stuff was good," Michael admitted and sipped his beer. "It was cafe soda? Is that how you say it?"
"No. It sounds like cafe se da though. I think it was introduced when the French occupied Vietnam," she replied. Pam pointed at herself. "Sure. Next coffee date we can do I'll bring you some."

An alarm went off and Dan came in. "How's my meat coming?" He asked and checked the temperature of the very large turkey.
"Not burning," Teodora laughed.
"It didn't crack open like Christmas Vacation?" Dan teased and she cocked her head. "You haven't seen Christmas Vacation!" He roared in shock.

"Pardon me for growing up in an Asian and Hispanic neighborhood for part of my childhood," she shot back playfully.
"I'm officially scheduling a movie night. We'll watch Christmas movies," Dan nodded. "What movies did you watch growing up?"
"Batman Forever and Jurassic Park we saw. Other than that, we stayed away from the foster parents TV," Teodora replied vaguely. "Surprisingly I thought the dinosaurs were cool. My old foster brothers couldn't sleep for a week from that T-Rex."

"Oh no!" Pam pouted. "What was that Asian boy band you said you grew up to?"
Teodora smiled. "Oh the Korean family in our place was always playing the K-pop stuff so I grew up with typical 'N Sync, Backstreet Boys, NKOTB but the good Korean music was Shinhwa, Fly to the Sky...um I liked this Korean Justin Timberlake guy Se7en, Wheesung, Jinusean, Seo Taiji and the Boys of course."
"Was that that One Time for your Mind song you and Taeyeon were singing the other day?" Michael asked.
She straightened up. "1TYM too! That's a good rap group. Then you all know the Spanish music I listen to. Reggaeton, banda, Norteño, pop, rock..."
"I like Tengo Mi Camisa Negra," Michael said. "That guy from Colombia."
"La Camisa Negra and its Juanes," she said. "Though good job remembering that."

Soon the food was ready and Teodora of course found herself sitting by Michael. "What, barely any turkey?" Michael asked. "There's like, none on your plate. Dan's not that bad of a cook!"
"No, no! I'm being smart!" Teodora pointed. "If I don't do this, I'll fall asleep and be dead to the world. I still have to fly tonight too."
"Going home?" Brandon Dubinsky asked through a mouth full of mashed potatoes.
"Nah, Thanksgiving's at Jerome's place," Teodora replied. "So I'm either staying at Jerome's place or his girlfriend Lexy might demand a long due girls sleepover at her place."

"Think they'll stop by over break?" Brandon Prust asked. "I know you said your hometown buddy Lawrence was coming from UCLA."
"Uh, since they're seniors in high school they don't get January off," Teodora replied and saw some surprised people. "Yeah they had to be held back a bit because they had to catch up with everything. I lucked out and had smart as hell adopted parents."
"No kidding," Michael agreed. "There was some taped lecture her dad did at John Hopkins I think I got lost within a minute."
"Lots of people would agree with you. Don't worry," she assured her roommate. "But for breaks they're looking at weekends. I'll fly down for the Tampa game so we can see the Stevens and Manny."

"So are you staying in San Francisco the whole month?" Brian asked.
She shook her head. "Two weeks then I'll be back. Both the parents always have medical lectures in the UK so they'll take Joey over and see the family too. Then Michael gets me back."
Michael smiled. "I'm not gonna lie, its gonna be really weird. And quiet," he admitted.
The boys bellowed awe's and she knew they were happy with this reaction from Michael. Teodora knew very well that this seating arrangement wasn't only because they were roommates, but so that he'd stop with the one night stands and settle down with her. The two of them personally couldn't get over treating each other like siblings and she still doubted it would happen.

Soon, dinner was over and some of the boys drifted over to the living room to watch football and fall into post-dinner slumber except for Artem, Henrik and Michael, all the girls and Teodora.
"Want some pie before you leave Teo?" Pam asked as she pulled out vanilla ice cream and whipped cream for the pies.
"Sure. I'll do a bit of pumpkin and a bit of apple," Teodora replied.
"So, you come back tomorrow?" Artem asked, taking a piece of pie himself.
"Yeah, I have presentation stuff to work on," Teodora replied. "Spanish so its easy. I just have to edit some of the other people's things since I'm the fluent one." She scooped up the last bit of vanilla ice cream and nodded at Michael. "Thanks for dinner," she said and hugged Pam.
"Dan?" Pam called and he came in to say goodbye as well.

"See you in a few days kid," Dan gave her a one armed hug after she hugged everyone else goodbye.
Michael drove her to JFK airport and stopped in front of her airline. "So I'll pick you up tomorrow night?"
"Yup, I'll call you for the time and everything," she said and he leaned in for a brief hug. "See you tomorrow."
Teodora walked into the very busy airport and boarded her flight to Maine....

Notes