by Sarina Bowen
“Last year I put my students to work on a block on the Lower East Side. This year? West 165th Street.”
I dropped my pencil. That was really close to my neighborhood.
The professor projected a photo on the screen at the head of the room, and a familiar facade came into view. It was a sketchy low-slung commercial building, with a parking lot beside it. I was pretty sure people often slept on the sidewalk there, because that side of the street didn’t have much foot traffic. At night, it was pretty dark and more than a little dodgy.
“Here we are,” Professor Giulio said. “This structure has been condemned, and you’ve got that parking lot beside it to play with, too.” He gave rough dimensions for the developable area, and I scribbled them down.
Someone raised his hand in front. “Do we need to include parking in our design?”
The professor shook his head. “This parking lot is too impractical to worry about. Any other questions? Don’t you want to hear about the prize?” He grinned. “Every year I have someone in the city government judge the teams with me. This time it’s going to be Mr. Jimmy Chan, the commissioner of city restaurant development. He’s also the guy who licenses food trucks in New York.” The professor rubbed his hands together. “The winning team will take the train down the Friday night before exams to have a food-truck dinner with Jimmy and his favorite vendors. You can even bring a date.”
At that, I sat up straighter in my chair. I’d been trying to convince my mother that Tipico, our family restaurant, should have a food truck, too. Food trucks charged higher prices than we could get in Washington Heights. Parking that sucker on Wall Street at noon? We could double our take.
But Ma listened to my uncles, who said that getting paperwork for a food truck was hard. And then there was the truck itself…
I was going to have to win this contest and meet the dude who knew all there was to know about how food trucks worked.
Professor Giulios was still talking about the rules. “Twelve teams, one for each house,” he was saying, “unless the houses are represented wildly unevenly.”
That got my attention.
“So, I’ll leave the last five minutes of our time today for breaking into our house groups.”
The teams were by house? As the professor continued his lecture, I eyed the room. From Beaumont House there was me, Bella and Alison. And also a junior woman I recognized from Alison’s entryway.
There had to be more, right? Oh, Dios. Let there be too many Beaumonters in the class, so I could join another team. I squinted at all the heads in the room, hoping for more familiar faces.
But I found nada.
At the end of class, my fears were confirmed. When the professor asked students from Beaumont House to gather in the front of the room, there was only me, my ex-girlfriend, the hook-up who now hated me and a single stranger.
Jesucristo. My chickens had come home to roost.
Alison cleared her throat. “I propose that we break up further.”
We did that already, girl.
“There should be two groups — one pair who looks at the design element and another that does the economics. I’m really more of a design person than a numbers person.”
“I’ll do numbers,” I said quickly.
“Fine,” Alison sighed.
The junior who I didn’t know looked at Bella. “I’d rather have design. But if you really wanted it, I’d take the economic stuff.”
Bella shrugged. “Okay. I’m not afraid of numbers.”
Uh-oh.
“I’m Dani by the way,” she said. “Short for Danielle.”
Bella smiled. “I know you are. I’m Bella, short for a name I don’t like. And this is Rafe,” she jutted a thumb at me, “and that’s Alison.”
“I guess we’re done for now,” Alison said stiffly. She hefted her backpack on one shoulder, taking care not to look at me. “Dani, let’s exchange numbers.”
Dani followed her toward the door, which left me alone with Bella.
“So,” she said.
“So.” I swallowed. “Can we walk and talk? I have a shift in the dining hall.”
“Sure,” Bella said. We walked outside together, and an awkward silence descended. “So,” Bella said once more. “We’re doing this project.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice low. “I need to win it, too.”
Bella turned to me with the first smile I’d seen directed at me in weeks. “Well, that’s the spirit. Are you sure you want to work with me?”
“Of course,” I said with more conviction than I felt.
“All right,” she said, hiking her bag higher on her shoulder. “That’s good news. Because I hope you’re not the type of guy who can’t look me in the eye after he’s seen me naked."
My throat tightened. “Bella…” Dios. It was me I couldn’t look in the eye. Not her.
“That’s the worst kind of sexism, anyway. It’s not fair to have a one-night stand with someone, and then act like she’s trash because she had one, too. That would be hypocritical.”
“Um,” I said, helplessly. Once again, she had me at a complete loss for words. “It’s just… I think we got it backwards. I wanted to start over.”
Bella walked silently beside me for a second. “That’s still some misplaced guilt, though. If we went out on a date, then you could feel better about what happened.”
That shut me up for a second. Because there was a little bit of truth in there. But it wasn’t the whole truth. “I just wanted to have some Thai food. You can call it whatever you want.”
Bella swallowed. “I’m not a relationship kind of girl.”
I put my hands up in submission. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.” Wait. Did I just get rejected? Yes, yes I did. My neck began to heat uncomfortably. “Are you the kind of girl who can’t eat lunch with her Urban Studies partner, either?”
“No,” she said quickly. “We could do that sometime, I guess.”
She guessed. Dios. I always wanted to have lunch with a girl whose arm I had to twist to make it happen.
“Can’t we just talk about the project now?” Bella asked.
“Sounds good,” I said, my voice tight.
Bella sighed. “We’re going to have to work together for eight weeks. Can you do that?”
“Of course,” I snapped, proving the exact opposite.
“Right. Did I ever tell you that my father made his billions in commercial real estate?”
We climbed the staircase to the Beaumont dining hall before I worked out just what she was trying to tell me. “So… you know a thing or two about how to develop something in New York?”
“Yep,” she said as we stepped into the dining room, with its soaring ceilings. “Twenty-one years of boring dinner table discussion are about to come in handy.”
Finally — a little good news. “Well okay then.” I held out a hand to her. “This is going to work great. Let’s shake on it.”
She gave me an eye roll, but she also shook my hand. Hers was soft, and I didn’t really want to let go of it. “See you Thursday,” she said.
“Thursday,” I agreed. And before I could think better of it, I leaned down and gave Bella a quick kiss on the cheek. She smelled of fruity shampoo and soft skin.
Then I got the hell out of there.
Nine
Bella
For a moment I just stood there in the doorway of the dining hall, watching Rafe’s very fine ass disappear into the kitchen. My fingertips found their way onto my cheekbone, to the place where Rafe had put the sneaky kiss that short-circuited my brain.
Rafe was the most confusing boy I’d ever met. A month had gone by since we’d hooked up — it was ancient history. But I still felt too aware of him, and I didn’t know why. On our walk over here, I’d given him a freaking lecture on morality, because I couldn’t figure out how to shut up.
And then he kissed me? Who did that?
“Um, Bella?”
I turned to find Graham and two oth
er friends — Corey and Scarlet — staring up at me from the table just inside the door. “Hi,” I said, dropping my hand from my cheek, and feeling self-conscious.
“Hi yourself,” Corey said with a grin. In fact, they were all smirking at me.
That unstuck me. I walked over to the empty seat beside Graham and dropped my backpack onto the floor. Sitting down, I stole one of Graham’s little dining hall glasses of Coke and drank it down.
“Who’s your friend?” Graham asked, turning his head to look pointedly at the kitchen door.
“Neighbor,” I corrected. “We have a class together.”
“Huh,” he said. “Did you notice that your neighbor was smokin’ hot?”
Was I ever going to get used to him saying things like that? Doubtful. “I did notice,” I mumbled, wondering how quickly I could change the subject. “Got any plans for the weekend, guys?” I tried.
“Not really,” Corey said. “Then again, it’s Tuesday.”
Right. “Good point.” I looked over at Graham’s tray and went in for another glass of Coke.
He blocked my hand. “You know, they’ll give you a tray of your own.”
“Where is the love?” I complained. I stood up anyway and went over to the beverage counter. The truth was that I didn’t feel all that well, and I was strangely thirsty. So I put three glasses on my tray and filled them with ice and soda. Food didn’t sound all that appealing, but I made myself a small plate at the salad bar, then went to sit down with my hockey friends again.
While I ate, Scarlet, a goalie on the women’s team, asked Corey questions about their upcoming tournament in Boston. “I haven’t played in that arena before.”
“It’s a dump,” I said at exactly the same time Corey said the same thing.
“Jinx!” Corey cried. “But it’s true. They need a renovation. Badly.” She was the manager of the women’s team, so she traveled all the same places with her team that I did.
My stomach ached, so I pushed my plate away. Hopefully I wasn’t coming down with anything. Strains of “When the Saints Go Marching In” began to rise up from my backpack.
“Whose ringtone is that?” Scarlet asked.
“My mom’s,” I said, reaching down to decline the call.
“That’s hysterical.”
“Yeah, I crack myself up.”
Unfortunately, the darned song played twice more before lunch was over. When I finally stepped into the empty stairwell, I called her back. “What is it, Mom?”
“Bella! I have good news. Your sister just found out that she got the grant she was so excited about. Now she can open her immunization clinic.”
Well at least someone in the family knew what she wanted. “That’s great, Mom. Julie must be psyched.” My big sister was a public health crusader. She was the good daughter, the one who had always done as she was told. And now she spent all her time doing nice, important things for other people from dawn until dusk. Sometimes even on weekends.
“She’s over the moon. Be sure to call her to give her your congratulations.”
I tried to keep the irritation out of my tone. “Of course I will.” Jesus. My mother’s opinion of me could not be any clearer.
“She’ll be delighted to hear from you,” my mother said a little too firmly. “Also, I need you to come into the city on the night of Saturday, November seventh.”
“Why?” I asked, feeling wary. “I’ll have to look at the hockey schedule,” I lied. The regular season did not start until the following weekend. Lucky me.
“There’s an awards banquet. It’s a big deal for her. The whole family should be there together.”
Shit. The whole family included one person I tried always to avoid. “Things get pretty busy here,” I hedged.
“This is nonnegotiable,” my mother said. “You’ll want to wear a dress.”
“To a banquet? You think?” Annnnnd now I was snapping at my mother like a teenager. Awesome.
“I do think.” My mother sighed. “Cocktails at six-thirty. Dancing and dinner at seven-thirty.”
Dancing! Ugh. Well at least I could blow off the cocktail hour without anyone getting tetchy. “Wait. I can bring a date to this thing, right?” A human buffer would make this whole idea far more palatable. My parents were too polite to chew me out in front of strangers.
My mother hesitated. “This will be a family evening.”
That was ridiculous, because there would be four hundred people at a charity banquet. “Mom, those tables always seat ten. And I know you bought a table for this thing.” That was how my mother worked. She loved her charitable causes. “And you can bet that Julie will bring a date.”
“Your sister has a husband, Bella. That’s hardly the same thing.”
In a remarkable show of restraint, I did not reply in any of the first dozen ways that leapt to mind. I didn’t have any words for Julie’s husband that wouldn’t set my mother’s temper aflame. “I want to bring someone, too,” I argued. “It’s only fair.” Fair being a stupid, meaningless word that I only used because I couldn’t think of anything better.
“Fine,” my mother capitulated. “I’ll put you down as plus one.”
“That would be lovely,” I said as graciously as possible.
“Saturday the seventh.”
“Got it.”
“And call Julie today.”
“Okay.” Jeez.
After we disconnected, I ducked into the women’s bathroom at the bottom of the stairs. All day I’d felt a little… off. My stomach was achy, for starters. But just to make things extra fun, I seemed to be coming down with a yeast infection.
And as long as I was tallying up all the worst things about today, I now owed my sister a phone call — my sister who could not stand me. Furthermore, I needed to find a date to suffer through a few hours of a stuffy banquet in Manhattan in a couple weeks.
Awesome.
In ten minutes I was due to the psych seminar that I took on Tuesday afternoons. But first, a quick pit stop.
After ten seconds in the bathroom stall, I was sorry I’d ever gone in there. “Jesus Fuck!” I shrieked. Because oh my freaking God it hurt when I peed. I was alone in that bathroom, thank goodness. Because… damn. I felt tears spring into my eyes.
After an excruciating thirty seconds, I zipped up, washed up and got the hell out of there.
Two hours later, and feeling no better, I dragged myself through the front door of the Student Health Services building and up to the second floor gynecology department. When I asked at the desk if my favorite nurse practitioner could squeeze me in, the receptionist shook her little freckled nose. “Ms. Ogden is off this week. But if you’re having an emergency, I can get you in to see Dr. Peterson.”
That was a bummer, because Ms. Ogden was amazing. The first time I came in for a pelvic exam, she’d held a hand mirror out to me. “Would you like to see your cervix?” she asked, with the same happy tone as if she were offering to show me a funny cat video. It was hard to feel awkward with Ms. Ogden in the room. Even naked from the waist down, with my feet in the stirrups.
I waited with an outdated copy of Sports Illustrated until my name was called. I followed a nurse down the little hallway and into an exam room. “Please undress from the waist down, then hop up on the table. I’ll leave a sheet right here.”
When she disappeared, I stripped off my jeans and underwear. Out of a misplaced sense of modesty, I folded the panties into a neat square, then tucked them underneath my jeans. It really made no sense to hide my undies when the doctor was about to look at my vag under bright lights. But I did it anyway.
I got onto the table and pulled the sheet across my lap. A double knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” I said, pointlessly.
The doctor who entered the room was older than I expected, with wispy gray hair and an ornery expression on his wrinkled face. But as he cleared the doorway, someone else followed on his heels. In walked a young man. He was tall — probably six foot two
— and so freaking handsome. Under less awkward circumstances, I would have taken a good long look at him.
Instead, I stared at my knees.
“Hello Miss…” The older doctor stared down at my chart in his hands. “Isabelle Hall. This is Mr. Gaines. He’s a medical student following me on rotation today. Is it all right with you if he observes our examination?”
Seriously? What was I supposed to say? Yeah, let’s make a fucking party out of looking at my vag.
“Okay,” I mumbled.
“Now what is your complaint?” the doctor asked, folding his arms.
At that moment, I would have done anything to see Ms. Ogden’s blue-eyed gaze blinking calmly at me from behind her spectacles. “It, uh…” Just spit it out, Bella. “I have pain in the, um, vulva region. I thought it was a yeast infection. But now it hurts when I pee.”
The old doctor nodded. “Let’s have a look, then.” He pulled some latex gloves from a box on the wall. “Scoot down on the table, please. Feet in the stirrups.”
I knew the drill. Still, it was uncomfortable. The little exam room seemed overcrowded. Cold air hit my girly parts when the doctor folded back the sheet.
Both men angled in for a view, and I pretty much wanted to die of embarrassment. The doctor’s gloved hand probed me in a way that was not overly rough. But I had to fight to keep the wince off my face when he touched a sensitive area.
“Mr. Gaines,” the doctor prompted. “What do you see?”
My gaze shot up to see the young man’s face color. He met my eyes for a second before turning to his teacher. “An infection. Probably bacterial.”
“What is the likely pathogen?” the old doctor pressed.
The younger man did not look me in the eye this time. “Gonorrhea or Chlamydia.”
“What?” I gasped, hoping that I’d somehow misheard.
The doctor nodded. “Glove up and prepare a test. Also, check for other signs of infection.”
As the younger man put on a pair of gloves, a trickle of sweat rolled down my back. “What does this mean?”
