Carbon Copy Excerpt
"The Swamp" chase scene
“Let’s go, Gators!” Clap,
clap, clap, clap, clap! “Let’s go, Gators!” Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap! Lilly
clapped her hands and sang one of the many Florida Gator cheers. She, and
seventy-five thousand other Gator fans, packed into The Swamp. Of course, this proved
typical for any Florida Gator football game, but especially a game as important
as Florida vs. Florida State.
Florida Gator fans nicknamed
Florida Field as “The Swamp.” The Swamp could hold over eighty-five thousand
people and represented more than just twenty-two players throwing a pigskin
ball on a one-hundred yard long grass field. The Swamp represented an
experience like none other.
Lilly and Luke usually sat in
a block of seats with her sorority sisters in the student section. Even though
they graduated two-and-half-years ago, there were always tickets to be found in
the student section. If one knew the right people, of course. Students quickly
learned the lucrative business of selling their much-desired seats for the best
games. The thought of one-hundred dollars or more in quick cash tempted many
starving college students. After all, one-hundred dollars lasted forever on a
bar tab at the Purple Porpoise.
Luckily, for this game, they
acquired four tickets in the Touchdown Terrace located in the north-end zone. Lilly
and Luke sat with their twin cousins, Kitty and Pat, who were also Florida
Alumni. Although the air-conditioned suite seemed exponentially tamer than the
standing room only seats of the student section, the crazy, hyped-up atmosphere
of The Swamp still filtered into their pores.
The first half of the
football game flew by, along with their buzzes. The foursome tailgated prior to
kick-off. Kitty and Lilly sobered up as they watched their beloved Gators stay
ahead on the scoreboard. However, Luke and Pat acted drunker and drunker as the
game progressed. Lilly first became suspicious of their juvenile behavior as
she watched them consume numerous diet cokes. But their mysterious trips to the
men’s room confirmed her suspicions. She figured out their scheme. The boys
sneaked contraband into the game: Captain Morgan’s spiced rum.
Lilly never desired to sneak
booze into The Swamp; drinking both before and after the game seemed more than
sufficient. Besides, the thought of Luke and Pat, or anyone else, mixing drinks
in the men’s room at The Swamp repulsed her. She prayed the boys were smart
enough not to get caught. Lilly didn’t wish to witness Luke and Pat being
ejected from the football game.
Assuming security took the
intoxicated fans to jail. She’d made up her mind she and Kitty would wait until
after the game ended to bail their twin truants out of jail.
It would completely screw up
her well-laid itinerary for the late afternoon, though. She didn’t want to miss
meeting up at the sorority with her friend, Rachel, after the game.
* * * *
The clock turned zero at
halftime, and Lilly hollered with the crowd. The Gators led by a touchdown. The
Florida State marching band filed onto the field. Lilly scrunched her nose in
distaste and turned to Kitty.
“Hey, I’m going to the
student section to see my sorority sisters. Do you want to join me?” Lilly
asked Kitty.
Kitty, who was now in her
thirties, shook her head. “No, thanks. Each time I return here, the students
look younger and younger. It’s depressing.”
“Don’t be silly, you look
fantastic. You could pass for my twin,” Lilly gushed.
“Thanks, Lil’.” Kitty smiled.
“Can you tell Luke where I
went since we’re both without a cell phone?”
“If he and Pat don’t get
kicked out.” Kitty laughed.
Lilly exited the comfort of
the Touchdown Terrace in the north-end zone and entered the breezeway to the
east-side stands. In the student section, the fans were packed in like a herd
of cattle. Not because the seats were any smaller than the rest of the stadium,
but because the students tried to squeeze in twice as many bodies into the
bleachers.
All of these extra bodies
crammed together, combined with the heat and humidity of Florida, made the
student section resemble a swamp. And everyone in this area stood the entire
game, too, all the way up to the top on row ninety.
Lilly
finally made it to one of the gates to enter the student section. She hoped the
ticket attendants wouldn’t bother to check her ticket stub since she did not
have an assigned seat anywhere near this area.
Through the sea of heads
floating in the breezeway, Lilly saw a familiar plaid wool hat. She stopped
cold in her tracks. She recognized the same hat from the airport in Miami. Oh shit!
Standing by the gate, she saw
the man in the pink baseball cap who’d followed her in New York City. His eyes
scanned the crowd. He looked for someone—Lilly. And so did his Irish friend in
the wool cap. There were two men after her. Shit,
shit, shit!
Lilly froze for several
seconds in the crowd of football fans. She needed to do something, anything but
stand here like an easy target. She definitely did not want to wind up
face-to-face with her stalkers. So she ducked into the nearest safe-haven she
could find—the ladies’ room... through the exit door.
This act of rudeness yielded
countless dirty looks from all of the other women who waited in the long line
to pee. She paused upon the realization of her own faux pas. Unfortunately, her
hesitation only gained her several more looks of disdain.
With a strong desire to avoid
a revolt from the mob of pissed-off looking women, Lilly wanted to prove to
everyone she’d never commit such a heinous crime as cutting line in the ladies
room. So she made a beeline to one of the many sinks against the wall.
Lilly splashed cold water on
her face and chest in a futile effort to cool off. Scared and trapped, she
looked at her flushed complexion in the mirror above the sink. Calm down, Lilly. Think, think, think!
She reached for her cell
phone to call Luke, but in the small purse she found nothing but cash, lipstick,
a hairbrush and keys. “Shit!” Lilly blurted out her frustration. She forgot Grier
carried her BlackBerry. She thought about asking one of these ladies if she
could use their cell phone, but she wasn’t yet on speaking terms with anyone in
this room.
Maybe she should call
security. But without a phone or a friendly face nearby, the option evaporated.
The second she left the safety of the ladies’ room she would be captured by two
men who were most likely trying to kill her if she were to judge from the
earlier incident in the Keys.
To escape them, she needed to
disguise her appearance and get the hell away from this part of the stadium. She
carefully studied her current appearance in the mirror and tried desperately to
figure out how to best blend in with all of the other women here today. She
couldn’t risk standing out in the crowd.
Lilly looked down at her
clothes. Her Gator-blue tank top and cut-off denim shorts barely covering her
ass could blend in with all of the other female students with a little
adjusting.
She returned to her
reflection and now focused her attention on her most distinguishing feature—her
long-blonde hair. Shit! Her beautiful
hair! How can she possibly disguise her hair? Although the University of
Florida came fully loaded with drop-dead gorgeous blondes, she knew she needed
to remove her long, golden locks. Shit!
Shit! Shit!
She could cut it, but the
thought brought tears to her eyes. How could she possibly cut off her locks
without scissors? Besides, she’d rather die a thousand deaths than cut-off all
of her hair. There had to be another way.
Her mind struggled to find a
practical solution to her dilemma. She looked at the girl standing next to her
in front of the mirror. The girl next to her wore a Gator baseball cap. It was
the perfect solution, but how to obtain it?
Lilly reached into her pocket
and withdrew a wad of twenty-dollar bills. Cash in hand, she turned to look at
the girl. “I’ll give you twenty bucks for your baseball cap.”
The girl turned and looked at
Lilly. She stared at the wad of cash in Lilly’s hand. “You can have it for
forty.”
“Done.” Lilly handed the girl
two twenty-dollar bills. She took the baseball cap.
Lilly twirled her hair into a
bun and piled the whole thing on top of her head. She placed the newly
acquired, albeit expensive, baseball cap on top of her head. Each strand of
blonde hair was tucked under the cap, effectively hiding all traces of her
natural hair color. Perfect.
Lilly placed the gargantuan
Chanel sunglasses over her eyes. The eyewear covered half of her face. She
studied herself in the mirror, satisfied with the transformation. Amazingly, no
one would know her.
Lilly turned to thank the
girl next to her. Without the benefit of a baseball cap to cover her head, the
girl since decided to brush out her hair—her long, blonde hair. Another great opportunity presented itself. The tall
girl also wore a blue tank-top and short denim shorts.
“Thanks again,” Lilly said to
the fellow Gator fan, now forty-dollars richer.
“No problem,” she said
without looking away from her own reflection.
“Excuse me, but can I buy
another favor?”
“Depends on the favor.”
“You see, I’m in a bit of a
bind here. Can you go out of the exit here, turn left, and walk down the ramp
in the breezeway?” Lilly asked.
“Why would I want to go left?
My seat is to the right,” the girl said cunningly.
“Because I’ll give you
one-hundred dollars,” Lilly said flatly. She revealed another fistful of cash
without missing a beat.
“I’ll do it for two-hundred.”
“Look, this is all the money
I have,” Lilly pleaded as she lied through her pearly-white teeth.
“But why do you need for me
do this for you?”
She certainly asked a fair
question. And Lilly’s request put the girl at great risk, but the greedy girl
didn’t need to know the details. “It’s a long story, but the bottom line is I’m
here at the game today with two different boyfriends. And I really don’t want
them to find out about each other while I decide which one I like better. One
of them may be outside waiting for me, and I don’t want him following me out of
the ladies’ room while I go and see the other guy.” Lilly hoped she wouldn’t
have to bullshit this story any more than necessary.
“Oh, I see. Say no more.” The
girl snatched the money from Lilly’s hand and headed towards the exit of the
ladies’ room. “You go, girl!” she said proudly, just before she made her left
hand turn out of the bathroom and into the breezeway.
Lilly stayed behind for two
minutes, hoping enough time elapsed since her savior’s exit. Keeping her head
down, she walked out, turned right, and strode as fast as she could without
drawing any undesired attention to herself.
Did the men follow her? Unable
to resist any longer, she turned her head around to look back. The infamous
plaid, wool hat floated down the breezeway, headed in the opposite direction. Hurrah!
Relieved at the success of
her ruse, she traveled quickly through the half-time crowd. With the breezeway
heavily packed with fans who tried to purchase their concessions and take their
restroom breaks, she blended in with the masses.
Lilly turned the corner,
which connected the east-side of the stadium to the new north-end zone. And then
she hesitated. Shit! She couldn’t go
back to her seat. Her standing next to Luke would certainly make her more
noticeable. If one of her stalkers used a pair of binoculars, they’d spot them
with a methodical search of the stadium. Besides, she didn’t want to put Kitty,
Luke, and Pat at risk. The stalkers wanted her, although she failed to
understand why.
Lilly decided to leave the
stadium right then while the fans still crowded the area. She could always
watch the rest of the game at the sorority house where she could get in touch
with Luke. He’d worry about her once she failed to return to his side for the
second half of the football game. He might even wonder if the security guards
ejected her from the game.
She decided to send him a
text message. She reached for her BlackBerry before she remembered its absence.
After cursing for leaving her phone on the Create Life jet, she figured she
could just call Kitty from the sorority house. So she walked until she exited The
Swamp. A crowd of people was already leaving the game. All of them headed to
either tailgate or drink at one of the many bars strategically located close to
the stadium.
With countless other Gator
fans surrounding her and an abundance of big, strong males around, she calmed
down a bit. Lilly just kept on walking. She walked all the way to her sorority
house and her sisters. She arrived at the house and collapsed on the nearest
couch, still terrified. Was she completely paranoid? Or were those two men
really looking for her at the game?
