“Wait, what?” He shook his head as if he were the one with the processing delay.
“You.” I pointed to him. “Told Makenna, the secretary.” I pointed toward the library. “That I.” I pointed to myself. “Had a hearing problem.” I circled my ear. “Except now I know that this whole time you knew I didn’t actually have a hearing problem.”
Hudson unhooked his right thumb from the backpack strap and put it to his mouth. “I mean,” he said around his thumb as he bit at the skin, “I only said that because I thought it would be helpful for you to have a quiet space and that’s probably the quietest place on campus. Also, you have to reserve it. And I didn’t actually know what you had until I looked it up, after the whole transmitter thing.”
“Okay, that’s fine, except why did she need to know the reason I needed the quietest place on campus? Why did you feel the need to tell her my business … inaccurate business, at that?”
“Because she needed to know that you weren’t, like, the average student, or whatever.”
“Well, just so you know, I want people to see me as an average student.” I tapped my foot impatiently.
“You want people to see you as average?” He pursed his lips as if I’d made a joke and he was the only one who got it, which wasn’t entirely untrue. “Edie, I’ve known you for, like, a month, and I can already tell that you are not the type of girl who wants to be average. There isn’t an average bone in your body.” His cheeks pinkened as he spoke the last words.
“You’re infuriating, you know that?” His small smile made me want to punch him in the gut and walk away, but it also made me want to grab him by the face and kiss him.
“Listen, I’m sorry I googled your disability. I’m sorry I said that to Makenna in the tutoring center.” He pressed his hand to his forehead, his eyes on the ground. “I—”
I closed my eyes. My mom and Serena had both said that I wasn’t giving him a chance. That his motives probably weren’t malicious in any way, but this didn’t feel right.
“Can we just forget we had this conversation and move forward?” Hudson asked, breaking the silence.
“No way,” I said, trying to think of a good reason why I couldn’t just let it go.
“No way to which, the forgetting or the moving forward?” he asked, taking a step toward me.
“Definitely the forgetting,” I said as I pointed at him. My finger almost touching the tip of his nose. “We can move forward, but I’m not forgetting the fact that you googled me.”
11
This Is Not a Riddle
I paced our room as Serena watched from her bed, eating Saltines with peanut butter.
“Just text him,” she said, her mouth sticky with dry cracker and peanut butter.
“You’re gross,” I replied.
She stuck her cracker-covered tongue out at me. “If I’m so gross, then maybe you should leave, go meet Hudson in the quietest room on campus, and get tutored.”
I stopped pacing to turn to her. My idea to solely rely on the FM transmitter and flash cards hadn’t panned out. We took an in-class quiz I’d studied my ass off for, and I thought I did well, but turned out it was yet another fail.
“A couple days ago you were mad that he announced my business to the whole tutoring center. Now you’re all give him a chance?”
“I wasn’t mad; you were mad. If you remember correctly, I thought it was rude, but also thoughtful and adorable, and I’m not all give him a chance; I’m all you need to pass French and your ‘I’m going to do this myself’ approach isn’t working.”
“You could help me study,” I suggested, kicking at her dangling feet.
She nodded slowly as she chewed. “I can help you study, but I can’t tutor you.”
She was right. We stared at each other for a moment, her chewing slowly and me with my hands on my hips.
“Okay, I’ll text him,” I said reluctantly.
Serena clapped her hands twice with a smile. “That’s the spirit.”
I grabbed my phone from my desk.
ME: Where is the quietest room on campus?
I hit send and held the phone in my hand, staring at my roommate as she dipped a finger into the peanut butter jar and then stuck it in her mouth. I shook my head as my phone vibrated.
HUDSON: Is this a riddle? Like, what kind of umbrella do most people carry on a rainy day?
“See, this is exactly why this isn’t going to work,” I said, holding my phone out to Serena.
“What does it say?” She leaned forward, almost losing the sleeve of crackers that sat in her lap. She laughed as her eyes scanned what he’d written.
“Are you seriously laughing at this?” I pulled the phone back, my thumbs rested on the keyboard. I had no clue how to respond.
“I mean,” she said with a shrug, “it is kinda funny.”
I closed my eyes as I shook my head at both of them, even if only one of them was present to see it.
ME: Are we meeting tonight for tutoring or not?
HUDSON: Sure. The room is in the tutoring center. I can meet you there in 15 minutes.
“He can meet me in fifteen minutes,” I said. “Happy now?”
“No, wait, what’s the answer to his riddle?” Serena asked as she watched me drop my phone into my bag.
I raised my eyebrows to a record height.
“Come on, I need to know,” she whined.
I sighed and pulled my phone from my bag.
ME: My roommate needs to know the answer to your riddle or she will die.
I turned my phone so Serena could read what I wrote. It vibrated, and I turned it back to check.
“A wet one,” I read.
“A wet one?” Serena repeated.
I shook my head again. None of this should have surprised me; Hudson was admittedly weird.
Serena laughed, and I looked over my shoulder at her. “What?”
“What kind of umbrella do most people carry on a rainy day?” She laughed again. “A wet one.”
“Oh my God,” I said as I finally understood the stupid riddle.
“A wet one,” she said, laughing again.
I waved my hand, circling her direction. “You’re out of control right now,” I said.
“Tell him that was funny,” she said.
“Absolutely not,” I called as I closed the door, waiting until I was out of her sight to smile uncontrollably.
* * *
The quietest room on campus was pretty damn quiet … with the exception of Hudson’s growling stomach and his tapping pen and his bouncing knee.
I had my notebooks, textbook, folders, flash cards, highlighters, pens, and pencils spread across the table. He had a fresh bag of Skittles, a pen, and his cell phone.
“Ohhh-kay,” Hudson said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair as he took in all I’d brought. He sat directly across from me at the rectangular table that took up most of the stark white room. “We can start with grammar if you want.” He bit at the skin around his thumb as he watched me drag my French notebook out from under the textbook.
“Grammar, okay. Sure,” I said as I flipped through the lined pages. I’d recopied those notes three times. “Grammar.” I opened the notebook to the page and presented it to him.
“How many times did you rewrite these?” he asked, his eyes wide.
“Three,” I said, holding eye contact. One, because I wanted him to know that I was strictly business, and two because his eyes were just too nice to not look into. Which I guess negated the strictly business thing … but he didn’t need to know that.
He exhaled. “Can I see your flash cards?”
I handed the stack to him and watched as he pulled off the rubber band. He flipped through them with one eyebrow raised and a quirk to the left side of his mouth. He tapped them back into a stack and thumbed the edges as he looked at me.
“Don’t bend those,” I said, watching his thumb strum down the edge repeatedly. He did it twice more. Completely ignoring me or to g
et under my skin? Either was possible.
The quietness of the room was putting me on edge. I thought it would be comforting to finally be someplace this quiet, but it was kind of unnerving. I took a deep breath in and out, my skin beginning to crawl.
“When you study these do you study French to English or English to French?” He held up a card that said la nuit.
“English to French, usually. Though I have tried it both ways. One doesn’t seem better than the other,” I said.
It didn’t matter if I started with la nuit and translated to night, or started with night and translated to la nuit. On paper, I was doing okay. It was the out-loud part that I needed help with, and no real amount of memorization helped with that. The best I could hope for was enough word recognition to get the gist of a conversation and then guess at the rest. Which was similar to what I did most days, only in English.
“Okay, so for now let’s go French to English. It’s more important to work on vocab than pronunciation.” He flipped through a few more flash cards, stopping on l’avion. “If we can work on you visually recognizing the words first, and understanding them when spoken second, you can pass his midterm and final. There are listening parts on both, but I think mathematically you could fail the listening sections but still pass with the writing and multiple-choice.”
I nodded. But that wasn’t really what I wanted. I did need to pass the course, but I also wanted to get some grasp of the sound of the language.
“Okay, French to English. Vocab. Recognizing words. Got it.” I nodded, blowing out an overwhelmed breath. I tapped my thumbs against the table as Hudson flipped through my index cards again. “Except, I do need to practice the listening. I know you’re just trying to help by saying that I could bomb the listening and still pass, which would be great if I wasn’t spending the summer in Paris.”
He stopped fiddling with the index cards. “When are you spending a summer in Paris?”
“This summer,” I said, popping the top off my pen and clicking it back into place. “I leave June first, and I’m supposed to come back for the fall semester, but I’m going to opt to stay. Besides the graduation requirement, it’s the reason I’m even taking French.”
Hudson was quiet for a moment, his eyes on mine. “Well, that makes sense.”
I watched his face as he spoke. He rubbed his forehead before setting the cards onto the table.
“What?” I asked. Clearly something was going through his head.
“Nothing.” He shook his head, his eyes on the table. “This is really good work, Edie,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine. “I’m impressed.”
I sat back in my chair, unsure of how to take his compliment and the change in his demeanor. “Yeah?” I asked, my voice squeaking.
“Yeah.” He nodded, sitting back in his chair, mirroring me. We sat in near silence assessing each other, and it made me uncomfortable. The silence, not having his eyes on me.
“So now what?” I asked.
Hudson slid my notebook toward him. “I’m not sure,” he said, flipping through the pages.
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“I’ve never tutored before,” he said, his eyes still on my notebook.
“You’ve never tutored before?” I repeated his words in a huff.
He shook his head before raising his eyes to meet mine. “I signed up to tutor for you.”
“What?” I reached for my index cards.
“Yes,” he said with a nod, freely handing over the stack. “You’re my first toot-tee.”
“Toot-tee?” I asked with a small laugh.
“Yeah, like I’m the tutor and you’re the toot-tee.”
I thumbed the edge of my index cards. “You’re serious?”
“About the toot-tee thing, yes,” he said, crossing his heart with his index finger.
I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling. “No, I know you’re serious about that.” I crossed my arms. “Are you serious that you signed up to be a tutor just to help me?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said with a shrug as he flipped through my notebook, thumbing to the last few pages. “Why is that so surprising?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but halted as he stopped on a page on which I’d sketched a figure.
He looked between me and the notebook, his cheeks turning pink. “Is this me?” he asked, the pink beginning to seep down his neck.
“No,” I said too quickly, reaching to snatch the notebook, but not getting a finger on it before Hudson yanked it out of my reach.
It was him. There were two more like it if he turned to the next pages. Which I prayed he wouldn’t—
“Wow.” He moved to the next page, his eyes widening as his mouth dropped open.
“It’s not you,” I said with an indifferent shrug, reaching for the notebook again. Now my face was on fire. I couldn’t have been less convincing if I tried.
His opened mouth turned into a giant smile at the next page. “You mean to tell me that these three sketches…” He turned the notebook so I could see the last figure. It was him in a navy fitted suit, a plaid button-down in purples and grays, and brown cap-toe oxfords. “Drawn in your French notebook, of a guy wearing a maroon hat—”
I pulled my lips in to keep from smiling.
“Aren’t me? These three drawings?” He motioned to the page before. “That all look like me, all with brown hair and blue eyes, aren’t me? That’s what you’re saying?”
I cursed myself for adding the maroon beanie. I brought my index finger to my mouth, my nail actually touching my teeth before I pulled it away. I was trying to hide my smile, but there was no avoiding it.
“Can I take these?” he asked, flipping between the three pages again. “I look good in these.”
I nodded, silently agreeing that he could have them and that he looked good in them. I bit my bottom lip as he ripped the pages out one at a time.
He laid the pages in front of him on the table. “You’re good at this,” he said.
“Thanks.” I felt like I could crawl under the table and stay there forever, but I appreciated the compliment.
His eyes scanned the pages again, then met mine. “What did the celery say to the veggie dip?”
“Huh?” I responded before giving myself time to process what he said.
He gathered the three pages and carefully stacked them. “I said, what did the celery say to the veggie dip?”
I shook my head with a laugh.
“I’m stalking you,” he said, emptying one of my folders so he could slide the drawings in.
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Are you implying I’m stalking you?” I asked as he casually claimed my folder as his. I wasn’t stalking him exactly, just observing.
“I am.” He smiled, sitting down. “In pun form.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he interrupted me.
“Don’t worry, I don’t mind.” He patted the closed folder. “At all.”
12
Three Words: High Fashion Lingerie
Friday nights were lab nights, and lab nights meant a minimum of two hours of sitting at a sewing machine, drafting patterns, or sketching out designs.
Tonight was a design night. It started as a sewing night, but then I stabbed myself three times in the same spot while pinning a zipper in place and quit.
The lab was a big space made small with all the equipment, boxes of fabric, and egos. There were also racks for clothes, mannequins for dressing, and rolls upon rolls of paper for drafting patterns.
I sat at a drafting table, the second one in on the right. The row had eight tables, and for whatever reason I liked the second one from the window. Behind me was the main entrance to the lab; to the left of the door sat four rows of sewing machines. Five machines per row, twenty sewing machines. The sound of twenty sewing machines going at once was not a sound one chose to endure. At least it was a sound I chose to not endure. Hence the Friday night lab, a time slot no one else wanted.
Across from the sewing machines was a wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and industrial shelving, everything packed to the gills with fabric. Each box contained a different color, texture, weight, and weave. Distressed and fibrous. Lacy and plush. Silken and stone washed. Everything and anything you could imagine.
I was working on an assignment that had us each pick two terms—a style of clothing and a form of clothing—at random, and then design three pieces. My two terms were intimate apparel and haute couture.
Translation: high-fashion lingerie. I was going for boudoir meets Martha’s Vineyard.
I’d been working on a two-piece brassiere and skirt for almost an hour, lost in my drawing and the soft music coming from my earbuds. The brassiere was two-toned, and the skirt was sheer from waist to midcalf, a thick opaque silk at the hemline. I pushed myself upright, my hands pressed into the table as I stretched my back. Hunching over the table could be murder on my back if I wasn’t careful. I spun the picture to the left and then to the right, getting a look at it from both angles before reaching for my pencil.
I was happy with it, but it was missing something. It needed color, and my pencils were in my bag across the room. I pushed back from the drafting table only to be stopped almost immediately. I turned to look over my shoulder and screamed as my nose collided with a stomach.
I ripped out my earbuds and looked up at the same time, breathless.
“Jesus, how long have you been standing there?” I gasped, my hand on my chest.
“I don’t know, like, five minutes maybe,” Hudson said with a shrug, his hands shoved into his pockets.
“You’ve been standing over me for five minutes?” I wiped my forehead with the inside of my wrist, knowing I had pencil pretty much everywhere else.
“Probably,” he said with a smile. “Actually, maybe longer.”
I looked up at his smiling face. His rosy cheeks and piercing eyes.
“It’s okay, I know what you’re thinking and it’s fine,” he said, finally taking a step back.
“I don’t think you have any idea what I’m thinking,” I said slowly. The truth was I didn’t even know what I was thinking. It was nearly midnight on a Friday night, and I was in a locked building. How the hell had he gotten in? How the hell did he even know where I was?
Meet Me in Outer Space Page 6
