Freshman year

Nicolette get up, we have to start packing up your room.” Nicolette rolled over in bed and glanced at her alarm clock it was five O’clock on a Thursday morning.  She had been dreading this day ever sense her dad had announced that they were moving to England after the school year ended.

 Nicolette sat up in bed. “Dad it’s six-thirty in the morning please go away.” Nicolette rolled back over and covered her head with her blankets. There was no way she was going to pack up her room.

 Her dad turned the light on and whipped the covers off of her. “Get up and pack I’m serious.” Nicolette put her hand up and squinted trying to block out the light. As her dad was leaving he said over his shoulder “your sister called she said something about her new apartment she said to call her back whenever you get the chance.

Nicolette shot up in bed, she hadn’t heard from her sister in the longest time. As she was racing down the stairs to the phone she thought of a great idea. She could live with her sister in her new apartment while her dad and his fiancée lived in England. Nicolette ran into the kitchen and called her sister.

“Hey Nikki, haven’t talked to you in forever! Did you hear about my new apartment? It is so awesome…and SO big!”

Nicolette plopped down on the big white couch in the living room and sighed. “Yeah dad told me. When you say big do you mean big enough for two people to live in it? How far is it from my school?”

Meg laughed “it is about 20 minutes from you school and its right in down town New York! How cool is that? You have to come visit me all the time! It would be so cool if you could spend spring break with me next year, because I won’t really see you that often now that you’re moving.”

Nicolette wanted to throw up at the thought of living with her dad and her future step mom in London “Don’t remind me. Do you think that maybe I could stay at your apartment when dad goes and sets up the new house? I really don’t want to stay in the empty loft it would be so depressing.”

There was a long pause on the end of the phone. “Um…I guess that would be okay but I have to work this week at a major event. I don’t know how much fun you will have just sitting at home alone all week but you are more than welcome to stay with me.”

How was Nicolette supposed to convince her sister that she would be the best roommate ever if her sister was gone all week? “That sounds great! Maybe I could come along to the event I really want to spend some quality time with you before I move. I won’t be loud or anything, it could be fun.”

“Nikki, I want you to com visit me and I wish we had more time to spend with each other but the last event that you went to was a complete disaster.”

Nicolette laughed nervously; obviously it was going to be harder to impress her sister than she had thought.  “Look Meg I promise I wont cause a scene.  You wont even know that I am there come on please?!”

There was a long pause on the end of the phone. “Fine you can come but you have to behave. Il call dad later and tell him that its cool with me and that you can just come over after school today. I will see you later!” Meg hung up the phone.

 Nicolette hung up the phone and raced out the door and into the elevator. When the door opened she shot out of the door and out the front lobby to where her best friend Heidi was waiting in her red Jeep Wrangler. As Nicolette was climbing into the car she said “Heidi I have great news. I may not be moving to England after all!”

Heidi screamed. “THANK GOD. I have no idea what I would do without you! Wait how did you convince your dad let you stay?”

“My sister got a new apartment; it has two bedrooms so I could just live with her. And while I’m staying with Meg I am going to prove to her that I am the best sister in the whole entire world and then I’m going to ask her if I could live with her. She will say yes, then we will ask my dad and he will say yes once he sees how happy I am he can’t say no.”

Heidi started driving. “So how exactly are you going to prove to Meg you’re the best sister? Don’t you remember what happened last time when you went to visit her at one of her events?”

Nicolette sighed. “Why does everyone keep bringing that up? That was a long time ago and besides I am going to be on my best behavior so there will be nothing to worry about.”

Heidi looked at her with doubt. “if you say so.”

 Nicolette laughed and then turned on the radio “have some faith Heidi; it’s going to work out.”

After school ended Heidi and Nicolette raced out of school and drove to Meg’s new apartment to drop her bags off. When Meg saw Nikki she ran over to her and gave her a huge hug.

“Nikki! I haven’t seen you in such a long time! I am so excited that you are staying with me this week!” Meg turned to Heidi and gave her a huge hug. “I am assuming I will be seeing a lot of you this week as well? Ah I am so happy to have you guys here. Heidi you can sleep over any time.” Meg looked down at her watch. “I gotta run I have to go set up for the wedding tomorrow but make your selves at home I will be back later.” Meg grabbed her coat and headed out the door.

Heidi turned to Nicolette and said “a wedding? Sounds fancy, you better not mess up.” 

Nicolette sat down on the black leather couch “Heidi stop worrying nothing is going to go wrong.” she looked around, the apartment was huge. Nicolette  got up and walked over to the huge fridge and stuck her head in looking for something to eat and called over her shoulder to Heidi “ I am going to make a pizza do you wants some?” when there was no response Nicolette closed the fridge door and looked around. “Heidi where are you?”

“I am in here. Come check out the size of this closet!” Heidi called from the room by the kitchen.

Nicolette walked into the room and her jaw dropped. The closet was huge, it was almost as big as her room at her loft. The closet was filled with cute clothes. Nicolette went over to the clothes and picked up a pair of designer jeans looked at the tag. “These are my size I have to try them on!” as she was studying the jeans a long beautiful scarlet dress caught her eye. “Oh and that!” she said pointing to the dress.

Heidi looked at Nicolette nervously “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, that dress looks really nice.”

 “I just want to see how it looks on me I am going to take it off right away it’s no big deal. Here help me zip it up” Nicolette said as she pulled on the dress. Once Heidi zipped her up she examined herself in the mirror. “This looks awesome! I am totally going to borrow this some time!”  Nicolette began twirling around in the mirror. As she was twirling the train of the dress caught on the bottom of her heels and there was a loud ripping noise. Nicolette stopped and looked down at the dress. There was now a huge slit up the side of the scarlet dress.

“Oh no...Meg is going to kill me. Heidi what am I going to do?”

Heidi just stood there with her mouth and eyes wide open looking at the dress.  She looked from Nicolette’s face and to the dress. “We are dead meat Nikki. Your sister is going to hate me and she won’t let you live with her and then you will have to move in with your dad and your step mom.” Heidi buried her face in her hands.

“Okay well it’s not as bad as it seems, look I can take It off we can take it to a tailors and then they fix it. And she will never know. I mean it’s not like she is going to wear it around anytime soon she said she was working all week.”

 Heidi looked out from in between her fingers. “Let’s hope not but first let’s get you out of that dress.” Heidi went to unzip the dress. “Uh oh”

Nicolette froze with horror “What do you mean uh oh.”

Heidi tried to unzip it one more time. “The zipper is stuck…It won’t go down.” Both of the girls ran over to the mirror to look at the zipper.

“No it can’t be stuck, try one more time.” Nicolette said as she was looking at the back of the dress in the mirror.

Heidi tried three more times but there was no luck. She looked at her phone it was 5:30 Nicolette had to be at the dinner in an hour in a half. “Okay Nikki don’t panic, here is what were going to do. We are going to grab your stuff that you are wearing  to the dinner and then go straight to the tailors they should be open for like another thirty minutes. We are going to have them get you out of here then they can fix the dress and we can pick it up in a couple of days and sneak it back into the closet. You sister will never know!”

Nicolette gathered up the dress and slipped on her Uggs. “Okay can you get the dress in my closet, I am going to get us a taxi, hurry though we have to get to the tailors before they close.” Nicolette dashed out the door and flew down three flights of stairs. She started signaling for a taxi, no taxis were stopping for her. Heidi appeared from inside the lobby with the dress and her makeup bag. They both started screaming “Taxi! Taxi!”

“Nikki this is hopeless, they are never going to stop for us. You might as well just come clean to your sister about the dress.”

“And ruin my chances of living with her? I don’t think so. Look there is no way I am moving to England. I am getting to the tailors.” Nicolette took off running.  Heidi soon followed her. The girls were weaving in and out of people. They sprinted seven blocks when they ran into the tailors. When they got to the door the little oriental man who worked there was just closing up.

“Excuse me sir, I know you are closing and everything but my friend and I really need you to fix this dress. Not even today we just need you to get it off me. I know your closing but it’s an emergency!

The man looked at Nicolette and Heidi and saw the desperation in their faces. “Okay, what the problem? I stay ten minutes to fix.”

Nicolette took of her jacket and said “the zipper is stuck and he train is ripped but you don’t have to fix that today we can come back for it I just need to get out of this dress.”

The man looked at the zipper and then back at the rip and then at Nicolette. “Okay I can get you out, but if I fix you come back tomorrow for pick up okay?” both of the girls nodded in agreement. Once he got the zipper unstuck she changed into her other dress.  After the tailor got Nicolette out of the dress they raced back to the apartment and went straight to bed in an attempt to avoid meg.

After the dinner the girls went home and went straight to bed. The next morning Nicolette woke up to her sister panicking. “Where is my dress…it was here yesterday.”

Nicolette walked into her sister’s room. “What’s wrong meg?  Its 6:00 in the morning. Why are you up so early?”

“I have to get ready for the wedding but my dress is gone…it was hanging in here yesterday.”

Nicolette’s eyes widened her. Great now she was going to have to move to England. “That’s um weird…couldn’t you just where another dress…I mean you have plenty.”

“No I am her wedding planner and her maid of honor I can’t just wear another dress. It would screw up the whole color scheme.”

Nicolette began backing away slowly. “Well I hope you find it…let me know if I can do anything else. I can help with anything except the dress situation. Whoa look at the time I’m just going to go get some breakfast at the diner with Heidi.”

Nicolette ran down stairs into the diner and called Heidi. “We have major problems…where are you were supposed to meet at the diner this morning remember?”

“Yeah I’m almost there but what going on?”

“. If we don’t get that dress back from the tailors before the wedding we are dead. Its Meg’s maid of honor dress, she would never forgive me if she finds out.”

“Okay, okay! It’s going to be okay! you distract her while I go and try to get the guy to fix the dress.”

Nicolette huffed. “And how exactly am I supposed to distract her? All she can think about is that her dress is gone.” Nicolette sunk her head into her hands. “God she is going to kill me when she finds out.”

“She is not going to find out! I’m on my way to the tailor they open at 7:00 its 6:45 now so can you stall for like twenty minutes?”

“Yeah just hurry!” Nicolette hung up and flew up the stairs and back into the apartment.

“Meg…where are you? I have something important to ask you.”

Meg appeared out from the closet looking extremely stressed out. “What is it Nikki? I really can’t handle this right now I have to find that dress.”

“I was just wondering what dress I should wear because one of them is short and one is long and the third one cuts me off awkwardly. I just want to look nice for your friends.”

“Nikki I don’t have time to pick out your dress mine is missing. Just wear what ever I am sure you will look fine.”

Nicolette looked up at the clock Heidi would be here any minute. It was getting a little uncomfortable. “Okay, what do you think I should do with my hair? Up or down? Im thinking down and sort of wavy what are you going to do with your hair?”

“I don’t know, I can’t deal with this right now just do whatever okay I need to find my dress.” Meg said growing impatient.

                  Just then Heidi came barging through the door. “Hey Meg, yesterday Nicolette told me to go look for her dress in your closet to take to get dry cleaned and I think on accident I picked up this one. Is it yours?” Heidi held up the dress.

Meg grabbed the dress examining the new seeming on it. She looked straight at the girls and said “why would her dress be in my closet?”

The girls looked at each other hoping one of them would have an answer. Heidi finally said “that is a good question, what was I thinking? I am so stupid some times.”

Meg ran her fingers over the new seaming and looked back at Nicolette. “You tried it on a ripped it didn’t you. This is the wrong color red. It doesn’t match. I can’t believe you.”

 Nicolette’s eyes widened. “No I didn’t I swear I”

Meg cut her off. “We will talk about this later.” She turned and walked into her room shutting the door behind her.

The girls drove in silence to the wedding and didn’t speak once during the whole entire reception. When they got home Meg went straight into her room and shut the door.

Nicolette walked up to her door and knocked. “Meg, its Nicolette…can I come in?” there was no answer. Nicolette opened the door and sat down on the bed. “Meg…look I am sorry that I didn’t tell you about the dress it’s just that I thought you would get so angry that when I asked if I could live here you would say no because I was a bad roommate.I really hope you don’t hate me.”

“You went through all that trouble trying to fix a dress so that I wouldn’t find out and you could live with me? Nicolette that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.” Nicolette’s heart sank to the bottom of her stomach. You shouldn’t have had to try to prove to me that you would make a great roommate. You’re my sister and you could of just asked me and I would of said yes.

Nicolette sighed with relief. “I really am sorry about the dress. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you I just panicked. I really wanted this to work. I don’t want to move. ”

Meg hugged her little sister. “well I don’t want you to move either. Now that you are living here though I just ask one thing, stay out of my closet.”

Nicolette jumped up and down and hugged her sister. “ you mean I can stay?”

Meg laughed “of course I would miss you to much if you moved all the way to England!”

Analysis 

My freshman year i only wrote short stories for writing workshop, or i should say i only wrote boring, predictable short stories. I was afraid to go outside of  my comfort zone and i never wanted to write anything personal so my pieces always ended up being subpar and generic. One of my biggest problems freshman year was the overuse of dialogue. I would say about 98% of my pieces were dialogue and the other two percent was composed of dialogue tags and lame descriptions. I also was a big fan of the elipsis even though i used it incorrectly a million times in my pieces. I used them to try and show that the speaker was pausing or hesitant but i recently learned in Grammar Composition that an Ellipsis is not used like that. It is actually used to convey that some information has been left out aka a part of the sentence is "missing". Basically I would have to say that my writing my freshman year was nothing special despite the fact that I thought i was a rockstar because i could write ten page long stories that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. If you had asked me what I thought about myself as a writer freshman year I would have told you I was Awesome. Sorry to anyone who I had the conversation with i know there are a few of you out there!