A little background a interracial short story. You have Bianca (black) and Brandy (white) who are roommates, from two totally different worlds, even though they both go to the same college.
Juni Lyn 3/10/2008
Do You Take Cream In Your Coffee?
Chapter 1
"Yeah Danielle I'm on my way home. I'm beyond glad that it's finally Friday. Have any plans for tonight?" Bianca asked her best friend over the phone as she navigated her charcoal black Audi sedan through the light traffic surrounding the campus grounds. It was always like this come Friday afternoon; the campus became a virtual ghost town after lunch hour. It was a perk and a curse to going to a suitcase college. Almost all the students leave on Friday and students from other colleges came on Saturday. It was an odd set up, but one Bianca had gotten use to in the last four years of her college career. As always she was grateful for the lack of cars on the road, she had had a long week and an even longer Friday. Two midterms, a paper, not to mention all the reading she had to do for her various classes, she had somehow managed to get in forty hours at her job. She was exhausted.
"Me and Emily were thinking about going to the club tonight, wanna come?" Danielle responded.
"What time? I need to take a nap or something, I'm exhausted." She hadn't been to the club in a few weeks, she wouldn't mind going and shaking her stuff on the dance floor.
"Probably around 9, we figured we could grab something to eat and then head over to Cronus. It's four now, you can get a good three hour nap before you have to get up and get ready."
"True. Alright I'm in, give me a call later when you guys figure out the details. I'm almost to the apartment now."
"Talk to you then girlie. I promised Emily we would go shopping for her, she's been complaining about nothing to wear all week."
"Have fun!" Bianca waited for the beep in her ear piece to signal the end of the call before taking the thing out her ear. Reaching down she turned up the radio, they were playing the newest song from Janet Jackson, her favorite singer. She sang along in her best alto voice as she pulled into her apartment community. She had only been living there since the beginning of the semester, two months, her lease at her old place had ended and she had felt the itch to move. She had answered the ad in the newspaper and signed the lease that same week. She hadn't had a chance to meet the previous owner, because he had left the state for work. But the landlord had been nice enough to deal with the switch over and had even given Bianca a discount based on her previous landlord's recommendations. She knew when she signed the lease that she would be having a roommate, but she hadn't known then what type of a roommate.
From what she learned over the two months of her stay here, her roommate Brandy's step brother is best-friends with the guy who use to live here with his fiancé. However the two had split and moved out of the apartment. Brandy and the ex-fiancé were friends so that's how she got in the apartment. Unfortunately Brandy didn't have a job and her parents weren't willing to pay for the apartment alone, she had to accept Bianca as her roommate. Things had started off well; both girls were in the last year at Oakwood State College. Event through they had traveled in different social circles, Bianca thought they were getting along fine. She hadn't minded that Brandy was white and she was black, that sort of thing never bothered her, in fact her other best friend Emily was white and she had even dated a white guy in middle school. Brandy hadn't seemed to be bothered about their difference in race either. At the end of their first month together Bianca was pleased and thought she had lucked out on getting a random roommate that wasn't totally terrible.
But within that same week things had went downhill. She really couldn't pinpoint the exact time frame but she knew it was within a week. It started off with little things, Brandy forgetting to clean up after herself, then to slightly bigger things like her having people over all the time at all hours of the day and night. Now it's starting to get really strained, Bianca wasn't the type of person to be taken advantage of for long. When a few of her favorite movies went missing after one of Brandy's friends had been left alone in their apartment, Bianca had called Brandy and the friend out on it. She had been as nice as possible, but Brandy had torn her head off for even suggesting it. Since that day brandy had picked fights with Bianca every chance should could. If it wasn't for the hefty charge she would be slapped with for breaking her lease Bianca would leave and find another place. The other problem was the community itself was one of the best places to live as far as apartment communities went. The space and the amenities almost made up for the problems with Brandy, almost.
Pulling into her designated parking spot Bianca grabbed her book bag and purse and stepped out of the car, looking around she didn't spot any of Brandy's friends' cars. She sighed in relief and headed up the stairs. Only to be stopped by their next door neighbor, Mrs. MacDowell, or Gracie to her friends. The short silver haired older woman called out to her as Bianca made her way up the stairs. "Bianca I need to talk to you." Usually she wouldn't mind stopping at having a conversation with the eccentric lady but she really wanted to go in and lay down before she went out tonight and by the tone of her voice she had a bone to pick.
"Is there something wrong Mrs. MacDowell?" she asked as she stopped in front of her door.
The usually friendly woman placed her small withered hands on her equaling small waist, drawing her nearly nonexistent eyebrows over her slitted blues and said in a no-nonsense tone, "What's this business of playing such loud and obnoxious music this morning?"
"Loud music? I don't know what you're talking about Mrs. MacDowell?" That wasn't entirely true, it hadn't been her music, but she can guess whose it was.
"Someone from your apartment was up blasting that horrible rock music at 9 in the morning. You know how my sweethearts are in the morning, it was just plain awful."
"I'm sorry about that, and sending my apologies to the 'sweethearts' as well. I'll try and make sure that doesn't happen again." She sidestepped her and moved on to her door, inserting her key she prepared herself for whatever issue Brandy was going to chose to fight about today. Walking in, she closed the door behind her and bent to pick up some of the mail that had been pushed through their mail slot. On the way she passed the kitchen, she knew she should just keep walking but something was calling for her to peek in. Dropping her things near the table she looked in and groaned out loud. The place was wrecked, there were dishes piled up in the sink and on the counter. Because she had been working so many hours at work she had decided to crash at Danielle's place which was closer to her job and campus, so she hadn't been home all week. The trash was over flowing and something green and fuzzy was growing in one of her casserole dishes. . She moved over to the refrigerator out of curiosity, opening up she got a great whiff of something vile and quickly slammed the door back. Walking back into front she looked into the living room this time, and her irritation grew. She knew she should calm down before she confronted Brandy but her nerves were already fried. Walking down the hallway she passed their shared bathroom, it too was wrecked, she stepped over the dirty clothes that littered the hallway.
As she banged on her roommate's door to be heard over the TV that was blasting from behind the door, she looked down the hall towards her room. Her door was still close so there was a chance her room was spared from whatever events took place over the week. She heard someone moving around in the room before the door swung opened. "Do you mind, I'm trying to sleep." The platinum blonde, sky blue eyed roommate sneered at her.
"Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep your highness but what the hell happened to this place?"
"I had some friends over." She said leaning against her door.
"And your friends don't know how to clean up after themselves? Is that something you guys pride yourself on?"
"I don't know, do you pride yourself on being a prissy little know it all? Jeez Bianca take a 'laxer, it's not that bad."
"Excuse me? Once you sleep of your drunken stupor then maybe you'll rethink that statement."
"I don't have time for this, unlike you I have a date tonight. So I'm going back to bed, I'll clean tomorrow some time." She said before slamming the door in front of Bianca's face.
Releasing a pent up breath Bianca moved down to her room, it was still in the same order she had left it in. Stripping out of her clothes, she dropped them in the hamper before climbing into her queen size bed. Snuggling down into the comforters, she set her alarm to go off in two hours. But her compulsive personality wouldn't let her sleep while her environment was soiled. Throwing the covers back she changed into some sweats and went into the kitchen and started cleaning. She hated that she was doing this but she knew if she didn't do it, wouldn't get done. She decided to take some of her frustration on through the cleaning.