Fresh

by Margot Wood

  “What I was doing before wasn’t working for me anymore. I’m allowed to change my goddamn opinion, Rose,” I say, getting in her face. “And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to find a little happiness.”

  Rose takes a careful step back and crosses her arms. “And you think this guy, Nico, is the one who can make you happy?”

  I throw my hands up. “I have no clue if Nico can make me happy, but I’m going to try. Is that okay with you?”

  Rose looks away, removes her glasses, and starts to clean them with the sleeve of her button-down denim shirt. “Yeah, sure, do whatever you want. But for the record, I don’t think he can make you happy.”

  “You don’t even know Nico.” My voice gets louder with every word that comes out my mouth, but I can’t stop myself now.

  “I do know him—and trust me, he’s not right for you.”

  I cross my arms. “Oh really? And why’s that?”

  “Oh, come on! You need to be with someone you can be yourself with, someone who won’t let you walk all over them and a guy like Nico will never push you, he will never challenge you. He’s a doormat, Elliot.”

  I lean forward and get in her face. “What the hell is your problem? One minute you’re nice to me and the next you’re basically calling me a bitch.” I turn to leave. I need to get out of here right now. I am bad at this, bad at arguing. I get way too angry way too fast and I tend to lash out.

  “Where are you going?” She calls out to me like she’s mad that I’m leaving.

  “I’m not really in the mood for another one of your lectures.”

  “You see? This is what I’m talking about!” Rose says. “Elliot, you are a good person who means well but doesn’t always do well and whenever someone tries to call you out on your shit, you immediately write them off as an asshole instead of someone who loves you enough to tell you when you’re wrong.”

  “Have a good night, Rose,” I tell her in a flat, sober tone. I never thought Rose would be capable of offending me like this and if I stay any longer, I’m going to cry and ruin all of Sasha’s hard work. I turn on my heel and open the door but she stops me.

  “Elliot, wait—please.” She reaches out a hand and I pause, my hand visibly shaking on the knob. “I’m sorry for upsetting you. Who you date is none of my business and I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I think about leaving, I want to leave but . . . this is Rose.

  She has seen me at my worst.

  She has helped me through my worst.

  I can’t leave it this way, not like this.

  She’s only trying to help. She’s only trying to help.

  If I leave, if I run away from this, I’m only proving what she already knows to be true about me. I don’t want to be someone who lets Rose down. It takes every ounce of strength I have to swallow my pride. I turn around and face her. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat like that.”

  She looks down at the ground and clears her throat. “So, are we, uh, are we good?”

  I’m unsure, my insides are still on fire, but the flames are starting to fizzle out. “Yeah,” I say. “We’re good.” I finally look Rose in the eye and see warmth return to her face and it feels like a step in the right direction. I shake out my whole body, trying to release us from this spider web of tension when I catch a whiff of my armpits and oh, sweet Jesus, I completely forgot about the whole reason I came here in the first place. I lift my arms again to show her. “So, then . . . can you help? I’m desperate.”

  “Oh, right! Yeah, I have just the thing. Stay there.” She climbs on her bed and starts tossing pillows behind her head until she finds what she’s looking for: the tiniest leather backpack I have ever seen. I mean, what is the point of a backpack that small? It’s not even big enough to hold a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. Rose pulls the strings on the little satchel opening and slips her thumb and index fingers inside like lobster pincers and pulls out two wrapped panty liners. “Here you go,” she says, holding them out to me on the palm on her hand.

  “Panty liners?” I look down at my crotch. “What, am I leaking down there too?”

  “No,” Rose says, failing to stifle a laugh. “They’re for your shirt. Stick them on the inside of your sleeves so the soft part touches your skin.”

  “This is your solution?!”

  “Take it or leave it, but it’s a trick that has never failed me.”

  I bounce anxiously in place. Am I really about to put pads on my pits? I grab Rose’s wrist and check the time on her watch. Oh shit. I’m so fucking late. “Screw it,” I sigh as I strip off my blazer and start unbuttoning my top. I get the last button undone and peel off the moist shirt, revealing my black, lace, date-night bra.

  “What are you doing?!” Rose’s lower lip drops open a little as her eyes start darting around the room, looking anywhere but at me.

  “Sorry, do you mind? I’m out of time and I need to make sure I put these on correctly.” I hold the shirt out to her and she hesitates, but helps put the pads on. I slip the shirt back on and Rose quickly fastens the buttons while I adjust the blazer over my shirt. When I think everything is where it should be, I ask, “How do I look?” She takes a step back, puts her glasses on, and eyes the length of me.

  “You look . . .” She trails off. She clears her throat and starts to try again when there’s a knock at the door and Lucy lets herself in.

  “Elliot, ohmygod, what the heck are you doing?” She shrieks. “You were supposed to be downstairs ten minutes ago!”

  “Thanks, Rose!” I barely get out before Lucy drags me by the arm into the hall. She places my phone, student ID, and wallet into the pockets of my winter coat and shoves it into my hands, then pushes me into an open elevator and hits the lobby button.

  “Have a good time!” she chirps as the doors close.

  And off on my date I go.

  Twenty minutes later, Nico and I are seated at table by the front window in this cozy, romantic-as-fuck Italian restaurant in Boston’s most tender-chickeny neighborhood, the North End. The whole place is warm and dark, lit only by tealights twinkling on every table. He looks handsome and relaxed, like he didn’t just spend all afternoon getting ready.

  “I’m minoring in art history,” he reveals to me over our shared appetizer. “It’s my passion, but it won’t pay the bills, or so my parents seem to think, so I’m majoring in sports communication instead.”

  While I watch him try to skewer a tomato, I find myself zoning out, unable to get Rose’s comment out of my head. Is Nico wrong for me? I don’t know the answer to that yet, but she is right about one thing. Beyond his preference for midnight showers and snowball fights, I don’t really know anything about Nico.

  “What else should I know about you?” I ask him with a coy smile.

  “What else would you like to know?”

  “Hmmm.” I rest my chin on my hand and think about all the things I could ask him. So what’s it like to make out with you? How much heat are you packing? Are you a doormat? Can we get the check and go back to your room already? But of course, I don’t ask him any of those things. Instead, I ask, “You said you were an international student, right? Where are you from?”

  He grins. “Canada.”

  “Canada?!” I cry out a little too loud. I lower my voice to a more delicate decibel. “Does Canada even count as international? Wait—” I stop myself from being insensitive. Maybe he’s from a really remote and Canadian-y part of Canada like Nova Scotia or Saskatoon or some shit. “Where in Canada are you from?”

  “Montreal,” he says, and I snort really loudly.

  “MONTREAL? That’s barely in Canada! It’s what, a four- or five-hour drive from here? I mean, for fuck’s sake, Ohio is farther away than that!”

  He lets out a deep, hearty laugh. It’s so hot. “If it makes you feel any better, I wasn’t born there. I was born in California, just outside San Diego. When I was five, my parents split up and I had the choice to stay in Ca
lifornia with my dad or move to Canada with my mom.”

  “Damn, I can’t believe you had to make a choice like that at such a young age.”

  “It wasn’t much of a choice, really.” He sounds distant and stiff. Looking away from me, his eyes fixate on the tealight in the middle of our small table. “My dad made it pretty clear he had no interest in being a father.”

  “Shit, Nico, I’m sorry,” I tell him and it’s not eloquent, I know, but I don’t know what else to say. Why did I have to dredge up Nico’s past? Dammit, I suck at this. Maybe Rose got it the other way around—maybe I’m not right for Nico. Any trace of tender chicken I had before is long since gone now.

  He forces out a smile. “It’s fine, really. I’ve had years of therapy to deal with the whole absentee-father issue and I’m okay with it now. I go my way, he goes his, and I’m okay with that.” He reaches across the table for my hand and I flinch at first but ultimately let him take it. I rack my brain for new topics of conversation, anything to get past the heavy reality of his childhood (and the intense uncomfortable feeling I am experiencing) but luckily I don’t have to. He does it for me.

  “What else should I know about you? What’s your major?” he asks. I take a nervous sip from my glass of water to stall for time. I knew this question was going to come up and yet it still makes me squirm.

  “Uh, yeah, I’m still undeclared actually, but I’m leaning toward something to do with film and television. Maybe screenwriting? So far it’s the only class I’m kinda sorta good at? I dunno, we’ll see how I do this semester.”

  “You must be taking a lot of random gen ed courses then? Last year I took this one called Queer Dreams.” He offers me a generous smile and I relax a little.

  “Yes! Thank you! I was totally signed up for that last semester too but my RA made me change it to screenwriting.”

  “Your RA made you change it?”

  “Well, kinda. It’s a long story but the short version is she advised me to change the class and I declined to take her up on that advice and then I lost a bet, so I had to change it. She’s incredibly bossy.”

  “It sounds like she was trying to help you,” he says sweetly and I’m immediately fake-repulsed.

  “Noooooooooo! You agree with her? Damn, dude, I thought you were cool.”

  “Yes, I agree with her,” he teases. “She had a good point! I was undeclared as an incoming freshman too, and I did exactly what you did and it completely set me back a semester. I wish I’d had an RA like yours to guide me last year.” I sink back into my chair and think about that for a second. I mean . . . I guess if it wasn’t for Rose I never would have even thought of taking a screenwriting class. I should probably suck it up and thank her for that.1

  “Who is your RA? Is it Taylor J.?” Nico asks as our waitress appears, setting steaming plates of pasta down before us.

  “No, it’s Rose. Rose Knightley. She was the one who confirmed the source of the smoke Tuesday night.”

  “That was Rose? Huh . . .” He looks surprised and a bit confused as he digs into his pasta.

  “What?”

  “She’s dating Monica Gallagher, right?”

  “Yes . . . and?” I urge him on.

  “Interesting.”

  “Dude, spit it out. What is it?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” he says and ohmygod, I’m gonna lose it.

  “I swear to god, Nico, if you don’t tell me I’m gonna stab you with this fork.”

  He throws his hands up in surrender. “Okay! All right! She and I haven’t met officially, but last year Monica was dating one of my buddies and she left him for Rose.”

  “Really? Monica dumped him for Rose?”

  “I wouldn’t say he was dumped . . .” He trails off, and my mouth drops.

  “Wait, are you saying Monica . . . cheated—with Rose?” I say it out loud, but I’m mostly asking myself because I need to deconstruct this new piece of information. I find it really hard to believe that Rose would knowingly hook up with someone who was in a relationship, I mean, Rose is all moral and monogamous and shit! Maybe there’s another part of the story I’m missing—

  “Is your food okay?” Nico asks. “You’ve barely touched your pasta.” I return my gaze to my handsome date and resume eating like normal people do on dates. Our table is so small that at one point our knees touch. I scooch forward on my seat and press my legs against his harder.2

  “So what about you?” I ask him playfully. “Any ex-girlfriends leave you for Rose too?” He rolls the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows and leans forward on his arms.

  “No. There’s been no one I wanted to call my girlfriend,” he whispers over the candle that’s dancing between us. “But that may change.”

  An hour later, we leave the restaurant, just as the moon begins to rise. The night is crisp and clear and even though it’s dark and late, I feel very awake. We walk to the water and I can’t help but notice that every person we pass stares at Nico like they all have tender chicken for him. Our conversation starts to run dry by the time we reach the harbor, but it doesn’t matter because the view is breathtaking. That’s something else I forgot, isn’t it? I’ve been in Boston for six months now and this is the first time I’ve seen the bay. I’ve never even bothered to explore this new, beautiful city.

  And then a cold gust blows in off the water and I remember why I haven’t explored this city. Boston is cold. Really really really fucking cold. I shiver and mentally curse Sasha and Lucy for convincing me a miniskirt and thigh-high boots were a smart choice for a date in the dead of winter. I go to zip my coat up but the zipper gets caught and Nico notices me struggling.

  “Here, let me help you with that.” He inches closer and I catch a whiff of his cologne and breathe it in deep. He takes his time zipping up my coat. His fingers travel from my thighs to my neck, slowly and deliberately, like he’s mapping the topography of my body. The way he’s looking at me sends a rush of heat to my lady parts and suddenly I’m not so cold anymore. A few strands of hair come loose from my bun and fall in front of my face. His fingertips graze my cheek as he tucks my hair behind my ear. His hands linger on the sides of my face and neck.

  “So are you gonna kiss me or what?” I say, biting my lower lip in anticipation. He lowers his lips to mine and then it happens. We kiss.

  [MUSIC SWELLS]

  [FADE TO BLACK]

  [END SCENE]

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that our kiss was the kind that inspires art and poetry, the kind of kiss that shifts and cracks my emotional tectonic plates, resulting in volcanic eruptions of happiness. You could think that, and perhaps in some alternative dimension that’s what happens, but not in this dimension I’m sorry to report.

  “It was so bad, Luce. SO BAD,” I tell my roommate the following morning as soon as she gets back from her morning run. “His tongue was all over my face, Lucy, it went everywhere except my mouth.”

  “Oh. Oh no,” Lucy says as she gets hot water brewing at the coffee and tea station in the back of our room. My roommate is a firm believer that all romantic debriefings require hot tea and baked goods. She serves us tea in matching Golden Girls mugs and hands me a tin of chocolate-dipped biscotti as she joins me on my bed. As I pour honey into our mugs, Lucy pulls her phone out of her pocket, fires off a quick text, and then presses me for more details.

  “Maybe it was just our height difference or something but one minute he was trying to suction my lips off and the next minute he was lapping my entire ear?!?!” I grimace.

  She laughs and asks, “What did you do?”

  “I just kinda . . . froze? I mean, I wasn’t even mad as it was happening, mostly surprised, and a little bit confused. He totally caught me off guard.” I start to tell her more details when Micah walks in our room, balancing an open laptop in one hand. He doesn’t bother closing the door and Lucy and I make no effort to get up from our cozy spot.

  “So are you going to go out with Nico again?” Micah as
ks as he takes a seat at my desk. “If he’s bad at kissing, he’s probably bad at other things too . . .”

  “How do you even know already?” I look over and Lucy is sporting a sly little grin. “You told him?”

  “Of course I did!” she says proudly. “We’re both very excited for you.”

  “Why?” I ask the room. “It was just one date.”

  “Are you serious?” Micah says. “He’s a hot, starting point guard who pays for dinner and wants to get into your panties.”

  “He’s on the basketball team? How do you know that?” I ask, confused because it now seems odd that he never brought that up. Oh, hey, I spend 70 percent of my time playing sports is one of those low-hanging trivia facts usually shared on first dates.

  Micah flips his laptop around and shows me Nico’s Instagram. “Would you please get on Instagram already?”

  “I told you, I’m a lurker, and besides, my family is on that shit. I don’t want to give them more ways to access me, but hey, click that photo, I want to see his face again.” Micah obliges and a bright photo of Nico shirtless on a beach illuminates the screen. The three of us take a minute to just stare at it.

  “Damn, he is hot,” I say.

  “Yes, he is,” Micah says slowly while nodding.

  “What are y’all looking at?” A deep voice asks and we all turn our heads to see Brad leaning against the doorframe wearing nothing but a blue towel at his waist—his hair and body still dripping with water from the shower.3

  “Hey, Lucy,” he says and she pokes her head out from behind me and waves to him. Brad runs his hands through his hair, sending little droplets of water all over our room.

  Micah whistles to Brad. “Boy, either put more on or take more off but either way, you can’t stay there, dripping water everywhere.” Brad blushes and runs across the hall to his room and we all return our attention to the photos of Nico.

  A fully-clothed Brad re-enters the scene, points at the computer, and asks, “Who is that?”