Confessions from a Ranger's Roommate

October had melted into November and Teodora was grumpy from only a few hours of sleep the last few days from her recent load of tests. Now, she was stomping up to the apartment while talking to her parents. "Mo-o-om! I went six months ago. I don't need to go to the dentist again!" She protested as her parents had to smother laughs at her whining.

"Miss Teodora Ansary, you are going to the dentist! I know whether you'll go for the appointment and I've already texted Miss Lina and she agreed that she'll be escorting you," Mom scolded. Teodora scowled and fought the urge to tell them about Lina.

The conversation must have been put on speaker phone because Dad tutted at her. "Teodora. Listen to your mother," he warned, amusement in his voice. "You know when she adds Miss on she means business."
"I brush my teeth after everything I eat and drink plus flossing so I don't have to go," she whined. "Can't we just cancel? I'll pay the late fee!"
"Teodora we always go around on this every time you have to go to the dentist!" Mom giggled. "It's not like when we first adopted you and you were brought to the dentist for the first time! Then you had a terrible amount of cavities, you had to get teeth pulled. While you kept insisting on biting your dentist!"
Teodora whimpered at that horrible memory. "I know this is different," she sighed heavily. "I'll go."
Mom tutted at her. "You'll be fine my darling. Now go get some sleep. You sound exhausted. We love you."

As she hung up the phone, she switched back on her music. When she caught Michael listening to one of his guilty music pleasures, Spice Girls, she had remembered Kiss from a Rose by Seal, the song from her childhood favorite movie Batman Forever.
"But did you know, that when it snows, my eyes become larger and the light that you shine can be seen," she sang as she took her time finding her key. Real food or bed? Real food, she suddenly decided. The parents would freak out if she decided not to eat so she dropped her backpack with a loud thud, removed her coat and moved towards the kitchen. Suddenly a man stood in her path that wasn't Michael. She took in his familiar dark eyes and familiar black hair. "I," she said softly and cocked her head to the side as he smiled. "OH YOU'RE HIS BROTHER!" She screamed as he stumbled back and cackled at her reaction.

"Didn't mean to scare you Teodora," he laughed and offered his hand out to shake. "I'm Chris. Brother said you should be coming in any moment."
"Teodora Ansary. I'm sure your Spazz Pants brother would scold me for it but I wasn't scared for a second. I was thoroughly confused by the Michael looking guy in front of me," she admitted with a laugh.
"Love it," Chris grinned. "By the way. Michael said you were pre-med? Why? I just heard you singing! You have some voice!"
Waving it off, she said, "Nope. Ear, Nose and Throat's my calling."
"What's that song again? I'm trying to place it," he scowled and snapped his fingers.
She swelled up. "The song from Batman Forever! Kiss by a Rose by Seal! Didn't you have a childhood?"
"Course I did, it's just been ages," he laughed. "I bet my brother's blasting you with all sorts of techno and rap music."
"Meh," she shrugged. "I don't mind. I mean, I like the alternative rock stuff. Owl City, Jason Mraz, Parachute, The Civil Wars, Black Keys. Love the typical 90's bands like Spice Girls, Nsync, Backstreet Boys. R&B stuff like Monica, Brandy, Adele, Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey, Ashanti, Aaliyah..." she ticked off. "Then Selena-,"
"Selena Gomez?" He guessed.
Canada boys, she thought and his a smile. "Selena Quintanilla Perez. A Tejano singer from the 90's. But she was murdered by a psycho ex-employee that stole from her." Once again remembering he was from far up north, she explained again. "Tejano is like, people of Mexican descent in Texas."
"Okay I get it," he nodded, very curious. "Are you majoring in Spanish too?"
"Minoring," she admitted. "I was told very sternly by the parents to have some sort of life."

As he scratched his eyebrow, he agreed. "Yeah. Michael's constantly telling me the amount of homework he sees you with."
Biting her lip, she scrunched her nose in agreement. "I think I've only gotten two and a half hours of sleep these last two days. Shh! Don't tell Michael!"

At that, the door opened and Michael came in with his parents. "Hey! There's the trooper!" Michael cried and swept her into one of his bear hugs-the one where she could feel all his muscles. She still didn't know if she should feel guilty about liking those hugs or not. "How'd the tests go?"
Sighing, she said, "Organic Chem can go burn in hell. Like, I'm so done with it. Spanish was a breeze. Math was fine."
Patting her back, he agreed, "I think those Columbia professors of hers like to have secret meetings to try to kill their students."

His dad laughed and stuck out his hand. "Steven. This is my wife Lee." His mother gave her a cooler handshake and simply smiled in hello.
Oh hell, this lady probably thinks I'm one of those puck bunnies or puck sluts. "So. I guess Michael told you every single detail on how we met and how this roommate arrangement happened?"
His dad and brother chuckled. "Don't worry. My lips are sealed," Mr. Del Zotto said. "Anyways we're going off to dinner and Michael said you were free. Come along."

Ms. Del Zotto shot her a cold look that made Teodora's spine stiffen and her mouth dry. That look was so familiar from years ago, one that would've caused her to run and find a place to hide. "L-l-look," she stammered. "I was probably going to check in with some boys to go visit Boogaard. Derek Boogaard."
"Why?" Mrs. Del Zotto demanded with a suspicious squint and she swallowed.

"Just...cause. We're keeping him on track with rehab stuff to come back to the team," Teodora said. It was the truth, but Teodora still had that lingering fear from seeing his concussion drugs. However Michael still didn't know about the foster parent abuse bit so she kept her mouth shut.

"Nah," Chris smiled and picked up her coat for her. "Our treat. Michael said you've pretty much done nothing but studying for tests."
Putting a hand on her back, Michael firmly steered her out with the rest of his family. Before she could protest, he murmured, "C'mon Teodora. You need an actual meal on you. Go with the boys to see Derek after you've ate and slept some." Guiding her out with his family, she reluctantly followed them out of the apartment and to a cozy little Italian restaurant.

Right off the bat, they started talking about hockey so after their orders were taken, Teodora slipped her phone out of her pocket. Her friend and Cara's boyfriend Kurt, who worked on Columbia's daily newspaper was always asking for medical stories to write about in the paper and had asked her to look into the medical situation in Haiti.

"Teodora." She kept on reading the news clipping on her phone. "C'mon Teodora. No school."
She glanced up at Michael. "This isn't school. Kurt asked me to look at something."
Michael leaned across the table and snatched her phone away. "Oh look. Medical stuff. I'm confiscating your phone for the rest of dinner," he said and tucked it into his pocket. "Don't stick your tongue out at me Teo."

"This is great," Chris laughed, obviously very pleased she was fighting his brother.
His father smiled as well. "Do you two fight like this all the time? Lee, I guess we can be glad that we never had a girl for Michael to pester."
"Yeah," she snorted and made a face at Michael. "And for your information, its about cholera."
Chris squinted. "I've heard of cholera..."
Yikes. "Uh, not exactly dinner conversation worthy," she smiled. "But you get it from contaminated water. Stuff that's not supposed to be near water...you get the picture."
"I get exactly what you mean," Chris said, grimacing a little. "So why are you looking at that of all things? I guess its not in your territory."
Shifting in her seat, she replied grimly. "It's going around Haiti. Somewhere that doesn't need cholera after that earthquake they had at the beginning of the year. This is not good. I seriously hope its just some rare cases."

"Would you ever do aid work? Or like the stuff your cousin does?" Mr Del Zotto asked.
"Maybe. Might have to be in a region where I can speak the native language in case my hearing aid goofs up," Teodora nodded. "So I suppose that covers some countries."
Chris leaned in. "So. English, Spanish..."
"Dari and Pashto, then some Russian, Vietnamese, uh Khmer-Cambodian, some Thai, some Hmong, I can speak Korean well but can't read it, uh, Arabic. Plus I do know sign language," Teodora promptly replied and laughed at the murmurs of more than I can do. "Yeah. Happens when you're a big city girl."
"Well you go to a good school for a reason," Mr. Del Zotto chuckled.
At least Mr. Del Zotto was establishing her as a nerd and not a gold digger. The conversation turned to hockey of course so Teodora listened to the boys discuss the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver when she noticed Michael's mom quietly excuse herself for the bathroom. "Going to the bathroom too," she said and walked briskly to catch up.

Teodora caught up with Mrs. Del Zotto just as she got out. "Hi, may I speak with you for a moment away from the boys? I just wanted to clear something up." His mother cleared her voice and studied her so she started talking.

"I'm not going to date your son," she said simply. "All this is, is guilt from breaking my hearing aid and my cousin being gone. I mean, we're friends of course, but originally it was because of the deaf bit and no cousin and not me jumping at the chance to be with a famous hockey player."

"And?" Teodora lifted a shoulder at Mrs. Del Zotto’s question so his mom continued. "Why do you give me those funny looks? Like you're cringing away from me."

"Ah, well, I guess I'm not any of those puck bunny girls. Hockey obsessed ones that try to hook up with the guys and hope for a money filled marriage. Though I was in the foster system until I was eight which is the issue," she said.

Mrs Del Zotto reddened with embarrassment. "I hope you didn't get that reaction from me. I suppose I just wanted to know a little about you."

"Ah, well," Teodora shrugged. "Don't worry. I won't ever date Michael because then he'd find out about the whole pre-adoption bit of my life and would always freak out about that. Its enough that he coddles and hovers over me about my hearing aid."

Seeing his mom was confused, she explained, "Well you were told that I was adopted. But when my mom or both parents ditched me at the hospital I went into the foster care. First at Long Beach for like, less than a year and then Van Nuys and those foster parents are in jail for neglect, child abuse along with the typical drug charges and check fraud."

"You were abused?" Mrs Del Zotto breathed in shock.

Teodora nodded naturally and continued on in a upbeat tone. "Oh sure. Yeah. Lots of foster parents are abusive actually. But they swung at us a lot, forgot to feed us when they were high, never took us to the doctor's. Like this is from meningitis," she said and tapped her right ear. "So, like I said. I won't date your son, so don't worry." Taking a step away so Mrs Del Zotto didn't give her the typical sympathetic pat, she nodded, "Going to the bathroom quick."

As she relieved herself, she hoped his mom wasn't ratting her out. After cleaning her hands, she went back to the table to find their food there. Teodora sat down to her bowl of pasta and wasn't peppered or harassed with foster care questions. Good, she thought and dug into her food. "Hey, this is good stuff. Nice choice," she murmured with her mouth full.
"Make sure you eat it all," Michael said sternly. "I know your eating habits."

Mrs Del Zotto glanced up and Teodora laughed it off. Even after her years out of the foster system, eating nothing the whole day wouldn't bother Teodora at all. Nowadays she had good parents and her own money but she still remembered being a skin and bones kid that had resorted to stealing condiment packets from the nearby McDonalds to fill her and her foster brothers stomachs with something. She remembered Jerome's girlfriend Chrissy's horrified reaction when Jerome naturally sucked down a ketchup packet as a snack while she and Manny didn't react at all. "Way to make it sound like an eating disorder," she joked.
"No, its not that at all," Michael said over her. "You just need to realize you'll do just fine on tests and actually eat meals."

They continued to finish their dinner and by the end, Teodora was yawning widely. "Well guys, I held out as long as I could," she giggled. "Thanks for the dinner Mr Del Zotto."
"Anytime. I'm sure we owe you for cooking all those meals for our bachelor son," he joked.
As they went back to the apartment, Teodora struggled to keep her eyes open. By the time they got there, she simply said good night, slipped into PJ's and fell into a dead sleep. At one point, she swore something moved but had no desire to peep an eye open to see. At three in the morning, she popped up, feeling a little more refreshed. Quietly, she went into her bathroom to drink a small glass of water and went back into bed and crunched down on something.

Teodora picked it up and realized it was a folded piece of paper. In a lovely scrawl, Mrs Del Zotto wrote: You'd be a good girlfriend for Michael. He cares for you, you know.
"Well...we're friends," she said aloud and decided she was still tired so she plopped back down for more sleep.

Notes