The early night air was warm and the skies clear enough to see the crescent moon shining brightly, the stars around acting like a thousand small fireflies as they danced gracefully, adding to the beauty. A tall, lone figure descended the Central Library steps on this particular New Zealand Spring night, late in the season, it was November. The figure paused to look up and admiring the beauty, took a photo with her IPhone 4, then continued walking towards the bus platform a few streets over. Her long copper-red hair fell in silken waves down the length of her back. She was wearing a short sleeved linen shirt, in a vibrant light blue, over her knee length black pencil skirt. Her black leather book bag hung easily from her shoulder as she walked along. Her heels, in a matching blue, clicked on the sidewalk. She had studied later than she'd first planned. Isabelle looked down to check her watch, her black wire framed glasses slid down the bridge of her nose, absentmindedly she pushed them back up with her index finger, covering her gorgeous deep blue eyes. Seeing the time was 9.16pm, she felt frustrated she had missed the bus for this hour and had the better part of an hour to wait for the next one.
"Damn Sunday timetables", Isabelle muttered to herself as she sank into one of the seats in the main terminal. She really wanted to get home and felt disappointed she hadn't taken her little Mazda 323 to the library that day, but parking was too expensive in the city for this second year student. She knew she should have just gone to the University Library but she'd wanted a change of scenery.
Isabelle considered calling her new friend, Sequoia. Sequoia had been one of her tutors for the Ancient Cultures course at the University this year. Isabelle was glad she had changed tutors from Jenny. Not that there was anything wrong with Jenny, she was good, it was just Sequoia was different from the other tutor. More animated and involved with the subjects. It was easy to see it was her passion and that helped Isabelle with her own drive to learn. Their friendship had developed as group discussions with other students had morphed into more personal debates that continued between classes or over strong lattes after tutorials over the past year. At the moment, Isabelle found herself more frequently requesting meetings for advice or discussion with the strangely intriguing tutor as finals loomed and the last semester drew to a close. However, Isabelle loathed to annoy her by interrupting whatever Sequoia was doing just for a ride home since the bus was still running. For the hundredth time today Isabelle found herself wondering if Sequoia was seeing someone. Would she be interrupting a date if she did call her? Isabelle wondered. Sequoia had never really mentioned anybody, which Isabelle thought odd since Sequoia had let Isabelle herself confide about her ex-boyfriend, William and their disagreements or plans the last couple months in their ill-fated relationship, before they had split just over a month ago.
Sequoia was gorgeous, Isabelle decided as she considered why Sequoia didn't seem to have anybody. So it couldn't be that at all, Isabelle thought. She's gorgeous in a brilliant, alternative sort of way, Sequoia's hair was shaved quite short and dyed a sort of midnight blue. Her emerald coloured eyes slanted slightly like a cat's over a slightly long aquiline nose and sultry lipped mouth. Whenever she smiled, which was often, a dimple appeared on her left cheek. Her labret, septum and eyebrow piercings had rainbow ball ends on them and she sported a massive swirling rainbow design descending the full length of her right arm. Slightly shorter than Isabelle's own height of 5ft 11. her body was athletic in build and sexy as sin itself, especially in her tight black jeans and that men's short sleeved white pinstripe shirt she was wearing the other day, and those gun metal gray combat boots, mmm... Isabelle pulled her thoughts up short before they went further, as they had been inclined to do for the past three weeks. Tutorials had started becoming distracting.
It was freaking her out a little bit actually. She liked boys, not girls she had been fairly certain. Now, however, and today especially, she'd been reconsidering that certainty. Maybe it was Sequoia's aura of masculinity that attracted her, coupled with that killer female body she would be hard to resist for most girls, Isabelle supposed. And her personality just topped it off. Intellectual, enthusiastic and spontaneous, Sequoia was always ready with a joke or a diatribe on one Greek hero or another. Or a theory on human evolution and the development of society or any number of things really, now that she concentrated on it, depending on the situation or day and Sequoia's resulting mood or thought pattern. Isabelle considered her to be one of the most fascinating people she knew. And although they differed and disagreed on quite a few political and religious ideals they always seemed able to put personal feelings aside and have great debates on the ethics or principals of this or that and whatever was on their minds.
'So... why isn't she seeing somebody?' Isabelle returned to the previous thought. She was fairly certain Sequoia was a lesbian. Indeed, it was pretty obvious from her complete disinterest in the many attractive guys on campus that frequently checked her out or approached her, and the rainbows that decorated her things and body itself. The question then is what about the girls that approached her in the cafe, which Isabelle had seen while Sequoia was at the counter, especially the barista in Cafe 365. But nothing and no girlfriend, as far as she could surmise. 'Maybe she's asexual' Isabelle thought. The thought disappointed Isabelle more than she would have liked, or felt comfortable with. In fact it seemed downright depressing that such a gorgeous woman could be asexual. 'Surely not though' she continued to muse.
Isabelle was still pondering this as the last bus home pulled into the station. "Number 5, heading into Southshore, from Platform B2... Repeat Number 5 to Southshore." A few minutes after the bus pulled out of the platform and onto Lichfield St, Isabelle looked up at the board and realised she'd completely missed her last bus. Sitting right there, she had missed it.
She groaned and hit the arm of her chair, "Merciful Zeus! I'm hopeless at the moment. No attention span, I must be tired." Then she giggled out loud at her use of the Ancient Greek term. Sequoia was really rubbing off on her. Her immediate blush after she thought of Sequoia rubbing against her seemed to decide her and she pulled out her IPhone and dialled before she could second guess herself. "Besides" she thought out loud, "I'm stuck now."
The fact that there were at least two people who would have picked her up, and actually lived with her, occurred to her quite soon after the call was answered. In fact at roughly... well, exactly the same time.
"Hey, Sequoia speaking," the deep feminine voice answered.
Isabelle was not expecting Sequoia to answer so quickly, she hadn't really thought what she was going to say.
"Uh, hey, it's Isabelle... umm sorry to call you so late." Isabelle stammered.
"Oh, hey Isabelle, it's ok, what's up?" Sequoia sounded as if she'd been in bed, Isabelle hoped she wasn't interrupting anything.
"Oh umm, did I wake you? It's ok I can call someone else..."
"No, no it's ok. I was napping at my keyboard, needed waking. What's up?"
"Well I've kinda gotten myself stranded in the middle of town, I missed my last bus. I was going to see if you could maybe, like pick me up... I can give you gas money." Isabelle finished as she hurried through, feeling totally spastic for having actually called her in the first place. Nervously, she fiddled with her petite gold pentacle necklace.
The answering laugh was soft and deep. A shiver passed through Isabelle and she started to get her black dress coat out of her bag, sure it was just the cold.
"That's fine; I'm not up to much. Except, of course, the keyboard sleeping. What terminal are you at?" Sequoia answered her voice clearer as she woke up more and started moving around the room she was in.
'I wonder what her room is like', Isabelle thought to herself.
"Isabelle?"
"Huh, oh sorry. Ummm the main one, B platform."
"Cool, I'll see you soon, ok? Bout fifteen minutes?" Isabelle confirmed and Sequoia hung up.
