Maggie had made her break with family ties when she was eighteen and left home to attend the university in
Columbus, Ohio
, that was not too far from her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. It was the first time she really felt free of all the negatives in her young life: father deserting her mother and sister while she was still in the womb, growing up poor in the Projects located in the Hill District situated above the city, and her mother's second husband sexually molesting her.
It was not a good beginning in her world, but this was a new start for her in which she was responsible for making her own decisions and working hard to get through college and graduate with a
BA
in
English
and a minor in
Biology
. Maggie wanted to be a teacher of
English
on the high school level.
For the first time in her life she was happy, really happy, and she looked forward to days of hard work, going to classes, having exams, and burning the mid-night oil studying. All this, however, was just a part of her new life that she faced willingly. Just being away from her home and on her own was more than enough to make her happy, and she was determined to do well so that she could continue her four years of college and then go on to grad school for her Masters Degree.
The world was now her oyster for her to open and find the pearl that would help make her happy.
Maggie had a dorm room on the fourth floor of the oldest building on campus whose classrooms had been converted into a dormitory. The building dated back to 1850 when the college was founded, and the large, grey granite building was the only one on campus. From the outside it looked like a prison, cold and foreboding. Three stories were of equal length, but the fourth floor, centered in the middle, was smaller, giving it the appearance of a tower However, Maggie didn't mind being on the fourth floor except for having to lug all her suitcases and boxes up all the stairs to her room 412. Besides, there were two advantages: there were fewer rooms on the fourth floor…only eight…and the view opened up onto one of the ritzy suburbs of Columbus.
Across and down the street was a small
White House
fast food place where one could get square hamburgers with lots of glazed onions for ten cents, a diner up from it called the
Feed Bag
to which she often went about one or two in the morning after she had done her homework to have a full breakfast, a movie theatre, a drug store on one corner and another one across the street from it. There was also a large, brown stone church, and from it there were several clothing shops; another movie theatre that showed risqué movies; and businesses above which were apartments.
The university as well as the eateries, movie houses, stores, and apartments across from it faced Main Street. Every town or city seems to have a Main Street. Just find Sinclair Lewis' novel
Main Street
to get the meaning and flavor of its collective meaning of such a popular name for a street.
Maggie shared the dorm room with two roommates, Pam and Bonnie, both of whom were good looking and friendly, but Bonnie was a knockout. She had wavy, shoulder length blonde hair, soft blue eyes, sexual lips, firm breasts, narrow waist, rounded hips, and long legs.
Bonnie majored in music, and her instrument was the organ. She was also a majorette.
Pam was the complete opposite of Bonnie. She had short, brown hair; brown eyes; a good body; but not as curvaceous as Bonnie's. Her breasts were small and firm, but they suited her small body. Pam was studying to become an elementary school teacher.
The big surprise for Maggie and all the girls on the fourth floor was that they had a
Nigerian Princess
in their midst.
It took a few days for Maggie to acclimate herself to college life and find her way around campus, but in no time she felt quite at home.
She did remember the Dean of Students at the Freshmen-orientation ask them to look to their right and then to their left. He then told them a foreboding truism, "Of each set of three, only one of you will make it through the first semester." That was a chilling prognostication to hear at the very beginning of the term.
"Maybe the Dean said that to encourage everyone to work extra hard in order to be that ‘one' who made it through her or his Freshmen-year," Maggie thought. "Besides, I graduated high school with Honors, so I should be able to continue doing well in my classes and get good grades."
In the weeks to follow Maggie got into her regiment of what was needed for her to do at the university. This included working to help pay her tuition as well as room-and-board since she received no help from her mom and That man. She was lucky though because the gardener/groundskeeper of the university needed help, and since she was a Biology major that included both Botany and Zoology, she was placed into the hands of a young, kind man who was from Germany. However, Maggie still found time to have fun with her roommates and friends.
On one particular day, one of her floor-mates whose name was Nancy came to Maggie's room and asked her if she would like to go with her to meet her cousin who had an apartment right across the street from the campus. Nancy told Maggie her cousin was quite a few years older than she, twenty-six to be exact, and was a nurse who worked in one of the hospitals in the city. She shared the apartment with her roommate Kathy.
"Sure, I'd love to meet your cousin, Nancy. I like to meet new people and get to know them. Do you think she'll mind our barging in on her?" Maggie asked.
"My, gosh, no! I've taken a number of girls over to see her," Nancy answered.
When Nancy told her she took a number of girls over to see her cousin, she wondered why they were just girls and no boys.