Always There

Before they knew it, summer was over and Maria was starting her junior year at Cal Berkeley. She happily told her manager at McDonald's to 'take this job and shove it.' She had saved saved all her paychecks frugally; paying her part of the rent, car insurance, gas money, food here and there. But she didn't have to spend that much of it. Her parents sent her about two hundred bucks a month to help her out. They didn't want her working during the school year. They wanted her to focus on her course work.

Something that made Billie Joe a little jealous.

He wished he was lucky enough to have two parents who could afford that. But then again, she had a reason. She was in college. And she was at the top of her class. She couldn't work at a job and work hard at her schooling at the same time and produce the same results. Just like him. It's why he dropped out of school. He couldn't focus on both school and his band. And his life in music was more important. And the gigs were his way of paying for things.

Their relationship got more serious as the weeks wore on. Billie Joe was such a one-woman kind of guy that when he was with someone, it was only them. He didn't eye other girls and flirt with them. He'd be cordial to the opposite sex and go as far as friendship, but Maria was the one in his life he had given his heart to.

When she wasn't studying and they were just hanging out together, he'd break out his guitar and just play a little something he'd been working on. It was upbeat but he didn't have any lyrics for it yet. So, as he sat at her desk chair and she was lying on her stomach on her bed, watching him with a smile, he was letting the wheels in his head turn. Looking up to meet her gaze, he smiled in return and an imaginary light bulb came on above his head.

What better inspiration than someone who was inspiring him every day?

"Roaming 'round your house, wasting your time..." he began to sing as he strummed a little slower, trying to think of the next possible lyric. "Uh...no...no obligation, just wasting your time...so...why are you alone wasting your time, when you could be with me, wasting your time..."

Maria giggled, moving on her bed to sit on it with her legs hanging over the edge as she listened to him go into a chorus. He was furrowing his brow, clearly stuck. He stopped playing, stared off into space for a few moments and then picked back up where he left off.

"Well, I'm a waste like you...with nothing else to do...may I waste your time too?"

"That's good," Maria smiled.

Billie Joe grinned shyly and dipped his head to watch what his hands were doing on Blue. "Warding off regrets, wasting your time..." he sang another lyric. He looked up as Maria was pulling a cigarette out and reaching for her lighter when Billie Joe, bobbed his head as another lyric came to him. "Smoking cigarettes, wasting your time...I'm just a parasite, wasting your time...applying myself to wasting your time..."

"Impromptu...I like." Tucking one leg up under her, Maria took a drag from her lit cigarette and blew the smoke out in a ring.

Billie Joe narrowed his eyes from a mix of thought as he stopped strumming and gestured with his head to her cigarette. "Can you light me one?" he asked.

"Sure." Handing a fresh cigarette over to him, she stuck it between his lips and lit it for him.

"Thanks," he mumbled. He continued to play once again, mumbling the chorus he'd invented on the spot through the cigarette between his lips. "Well, I'm a waste like you...with nothing else to do...may I waste your time too? So why are you alone, wasting your time...when you could be with me, wasting your time? Well, I'm a waste like you...with nothing else to do...may I waste your time too...may I waste your time too...may I waste your time too?"

Making this grand strumming thingy at the end, Billie Joe finished with an aggressive sound that had a bit of a salsa feel to it...for shits and giggles.

"That was awesome. What are you gonna call it?"

"I dunno. I should be lucky if I can remember what I just sang," he laughed. He set Blue down beside him and took a long drag from the cigarette, tapping the ashes into the ash tray on the desk. "Maybe I'll call it 'Maria.'"

When she snickered, Billie Joe stood up with a shrug. "What? It's obviously about you."

"I don't want my name attached to a song about wasting your time with me. People will think...oh, he doesn't like Maria. He was wasting his time in a relationship with her."

"Nuh uh." She still looked adamant. "Fine...how about...shit, I dunno. I think I should just write down the lyrics first while they're still fresh in my head."

And that's what he did. He wrote the lyrics down and then practiced the song over and over. Then he began to practice it with the guys. Soon they were playing it at their shows. The ones they didn't have to cancel due to too many people showing up, that is. But when people came up to them and asked what the name of the song was about 'wasting time with some chick,' Billie Joe realized he needed to give it a name.

So, one night in early October, while Maria was lying on her bedroom floor making a rally poster for a Democratic rally at Cal Berkeley, Billie Joe watched her while strumming Blue lazily. And it came to him.

Maria was part Ecuadorian. Her dad was born there and came to the States when he was 15, and Ecuadorian was another version of Spanish or something. They have Spanish roots. Roots...roots...

He needed something that described Maria without coming right out announcing her name. Spanish Roots? No. Wasting Roots. No. He wanted something with Roots in the title. What was something that was Spanish but not at all obvious. He looked around her room for ideas, when his eyes landed on a dictionary she had lying on her book shelf. Flipping it open, he would pick a random page and then search the page for a word that had a Spanish origin. He came to the S's and finally found a word that sounded kinda like how Maria could be and also had a Spanish origin.

Sassafras.

Sounded 'sassy,' like she could be. It worked great.

Sassafras Roots.

"What are you doing?" Maria asked him, cutting into his thoughts.

He closed the dictionary and put it back. "Just naming your song," he replied as he set Blue down and crawled onto the floor.

Moving her poster stuff out of the way, he flashed her a wicked smiled as he laid down on top of her and kissed her neck. Giggling, Maria brought her hands up to his hair...his head of shoulder length brown hair he said he would someday soon make into dreads. They rolled around on the floor as they stripped their clothes off and Billie Joe stopped to stare at her, then smiled as they made love.

Just the feel of being connected like that with her was just...awesome. And with the added thrill of there being a ton of people living in that place and no lock on her door...there was the inclination of being caught in the act. It was as close to doing it in public as they would go. Which is why they sometimes opted for doing it in her car.

In a busy parking lot at Safeway...at noon...on a Sunday. When families went food shopping together.

Did I mention Maria brought out Billie Joe's wild side yet?