by Julie Wright
He slid us easily under the shade of the bridge and back out into the sun. And he slowed even more until we drifted along under the second bridge, which was concrete instead of metal. “I bet the acoustics in here are good,” I said.
“Sing me something, and I’ll keep us here a minute so we can find out.” He worked the oars in a way that made us stand still in the water.
“I don’t really sing.” I was glad he couldn’t see my face and the blush that warmed it.
“You don’t really tell the truth either because I’ve heard you sing, and you’re pretty good.”
“When have you heard?”
“Whenever you’re thinking through a problem, you hum to yourself.”
I gripped my oars tighter, only not because I was afraid of falling into the water. I was afraid of falling into something else. Something that seemed wrong to want in light of everything that had happened. He really had been paying attention during the time I spent with Greg. “It’s strange to talk with you when you’re behind me,” I said, trying to ease the conversation away to something that didn’t make me feel so exposed.
“That’s why it should be easier for you to sing. You don’t even have to look at me.”
I hummed a few bars from the song “For Good” from Wicked.
“Oh, I like that one. Sing that.”
“I just did,” I insisted as I twisted slightly to look at him. The boat tilted, and I froze and slowly faced forward again.
“No, you introduced it. I want to hear you sing.”
“And if I refuse?”
“How stubborn are you?” he asked. “Because I am pretty stubborn. I can keep us here in the water all day. You’ll have to either swim or sing to see shore again.”
“You’re holding me hostage?”
He didn’t answer.
“I’m stubborn, too,” I finally said.
But, as it turned out, Everett was more stubborn.
The water snaked around us as we hovered in the same place for a long, long, long time.
“I’ve heard it said . . .” I began singing.
The smug rolled off him and filled the space between the water and the bridge.
He joined me in the second verse, and I learned something new about Everett.
He had a beautiful voice, the kind that made me stop singing a moment just so I could listen to him.
When the song ended, neither of us spoke, and then we were moving again, slicing through the water in Everett’s steady rhythm that felt like a song of its own.
When we returned to the stage, as Everett called it, Renee showed no signs of the jealousy that she’d displayed earlier. She must have had time to deal with it while we were gone. But she did seem a bit disappointed that not only hadn’t we flipped while out on the open water, I managed to not flip us while getting out either.
As soon as the sculling boat was dried and put back in its place in the boathouse and Everett had retrieved his student ID, he took my hand again as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
Renee’s eyes narrowed at the gesture, but this time, I didn’t let go of his hand to try to please her. My competitive streak really wasn’t the best part of my personality.
From the boathouse, Everett took me to the rock climbing wall at the FitRec, and he also took me to the bouldering structure where we tried out the crash pads and laughed more than I think I’d laughed in my whole life.
“I had no idea any of this was even on campus,” I admitted as we walked away.
“That’s because all you do is study.”
“Hey, I don’t always study. I go out sometimes. How else do you think I had a boyfriend?”
The words were out before I knew I was saying them, but they made me stop and frown and feel awkward. “Of course that boyfriend cheated, so what does that say about me? Maybe I do study too much.”
Everett laced his fingers in mine and leaned down so he could force me to look him in the eye. “What you had was a guy who never showed you anything new and never added adventure to your life, who never worried about you needing a break or a diversion. He failed you because he let status quo stay . . . quo. What it says about you is that you are better off. That’s all. Just that. What it says about him is a lot more and a lot worse.”
“Why, Everest?”
Everett tilted his head in question to my question.
“Why are you doing all this for me?”
“I told you. When we met, all three of us, you, Greg, me, in our organic chemistry class, I was planning on asking you out. I was in the process of doing the actual asking when Greg interrupted and beat me to the invite. I’ve been waiting a while to spend time with you.”
I’m not sure what I said after that. Did I say anything? Did I squeak out a word or a syllable? He didn’t seem to want or expect a response. With our fingers laced together, we walked through the campus to the street and over to the Bees Knees for some lunch at their café.
And I hadn’t even mentioned to Everett that the Bees Knees was my favorite.
Part of me wondered if he knew because Greg had said something or if he’d overheard me say something in the past, or if maybe this was just something we had in common.
And part of me wondered why I had to overthink everything.
It was just really hard not to overthink things when everything felt so fast. How I’d gone from getting into trouble with Jazzy Dean and having the worst day in human history to holding hands with a nice guy and having fun, real life fun, simply seemed . . . way too fast.
The day was kind of perfect, in spite of its blemished beginnings. Everett and I never ran out of things to talk about, and when he walked me home that evening, I realized I hadn’t thought about needing to do my homework once. I hadn’t worried about my dad taking over my education. I hadn’t felt panicked or stricken over the fact that I played hooky from class.
“So, you going to be okay?” he asked.
“I think so. No matter what happens, it isn’t the end of the world. Right?”
“You seem a little more relaxed than you did this morning.” He leaned against the wrought iron railing and surveyed me.
“Honestly, I feel like I just finished a day session at my mother’s spa sanctuary.” I exhaled a deep breath. Spa days were the one thing I actually missed from home.
“Well . . . I’m glad I could be here with you to enjoy a good day.”
I laughed. “Let’s be honest. In spite of the whole police part, painting Greg’s car with you was a pretty good day, too.”
He smiled a smile that had to have cost his parents a fortune to achieve. I’d never really thought about his smile before, but now that I was looking, he had a pleasant face.
I smiled too, knowing mine was equal to his. My parents had spent a fortune on my mouth, as well.
My gaze slid up to his eyes to find he was looking at my mouth as much as I had been looking at his.
Everett pushed lightly off the railing and leaned in close enough for me to really smell him.
He smelled like cinnamon and cloves. I couldn’t help it; I breathed deeper, filling my senses with the scent that was him.
“What are you doing?’ he asked. I could hear the grin in his words.
“You smell like something caught between a Mediterranean dish my mom likes to cook and Christmas Eve.”
He tucked his head closer to mine so that our cheeks touched and whispered, “And you smell like a lemonade stand.”
My eyes fluttered closed as his breath, warm and promising, breezed against my ear.
I forced myself to stand back a little so as not to lose myself in a moment I might have been overthinking. “So why do you smell like Christmas?”
“My aftershave. It’s the only scent that doesn’t smell like teenage-boy-trying-too-hard. Why do you smell like the lemonade stand from my Boy Scout fundraiser?”
“You were a Boy Scout?”
“I did a ten minute tour of the Scouting program, yes.”
“Huh. One more thing I did not know about you. The lemon you smell is because my mom’s a diehard vegan who believes in essential oils. She has some natural, holistic, eco-friendly body lotion she buys that she adds essential oils to. She always sends me the lemon scented ones because I don’t much like the others.”
“Maybe I was wrong about you.” His eyes dropped to my lips, and the moment slowed slightly to something cozy again—something safe.
“Wrong?”
Every word brought him closer. “I thought you would never be interested in me.” At the word me, his bottom lip brushed against mine so softly, I might have just imagined it.
“Then yes, you were wrong,” I whispered.
Chapter Five
When the phone rang early Friday afternoon, I had no idea who the number belonged to. I ignored the ring.
It rang again.
I turned the volume off. Homework at the kitchen table was sacred time for Janette and me. Anyone who knew me well, knew not to call during study hours. And people who didn’t know me well didn’t make the short list of obligatory phone answering.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Janette asked.
“Nope.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m not going to get it.” I pulled two Wheat Thins from the near-empty box and stuffed them into my mouth when the phone screen lit up to indicate the caller was making a third attempt.
“What if it’s important?”
“Then they’ll leave a voicemail, like the rest of civilized society.” I returned to the twelfth edition of advanced microbiology, which likely wasn’t any different from the eleventh edition, and ate a few more Wheat Thins. Studying had been hard enough since kissing Everett. That sizzling moment was all I could think about. The scene replayed over and over and over in my head, enough that I worried Janette would catch the stupid grin on my face and ask me to explain why it existed. I didn’t feel ready to explain the situation with Everett.
“Most people in society aren’t civilized,” Janette said.
“Then I’m doing myself a favor by not forcing myself to talk to them.” I turned the page.
She tapped on her sixth edition nutritionist’s book and narrowed her eyes at the Wheat Thins box. “Those aren’t actually healthy.”
“It says 'low sodium choice' on the box.” I didn’t look up from my book. “Besides I like it, and you’ve ruined enough foods for me by lecturing on their contents. You leave this one alone.”
“I didn’t say it was unhealthy. I just said—”
My phone lit up again.
Janette sighed at the device as if it was guilty of something terribly naughty. “Do you want me to answer it?”
I smiled. “Nope.” Answering the phone was out of the question. After my brush with the law, I answered one call with a phone number I didn’t recognize. That had been the phone call inviting me to meet with Jazzy Dean over my delinquent behavior. I needed time to prepare myself for another such call.
My phone went blessedly blank and nothing alerted me to any voicemails, meaning I was safe from dean tyranny for a little while longer.
A short while later, our doorbell buzzed. Janette scraped her chair back on the hardwood floor that had been abused by that girl since we moved in, and answered the door. We had other roommates, but they used the apartment as more of a storage space for their stuff. They were never home, which was fine because Janette hadn’t liked either one of them.
“Andra!” she called from the entryway. “This one’s definitely for you.”
My stomach soured. Was it campus police? Real police? Greg’s dad, who had given him the truck in the first place? Reluctantly, I stood and went to face the music, whatever it might be.
It turned out the music was a plastic bucket filled with cans of red spray paint, and a note.
Roses are red
Spray paint is too
If we do time
I hope it’s together
(If you don’t like the poem, just remember I’m premed, not liberal arts.)
Come out with me tonight. I was even good and waited until your classes and study hours were over.
P.S. put my number in your phone and actually answer!
“I don’t know,” I said in response to Janette’s look of explain yourself now. “I really don’t know except he helped me through a really rough past few days, and I don’t know how to explain how I feel when I’m with him except to say that when I’m not with him, I want to be, you know?”
“You sure you’re not rebounding?”
How could anyone be sure of such a thing? Except I didn’t feel like I was rebounding; it felt like bounding—for the first time.
I held my bucket of paint can flowers, picked at the top of one of the lids and shrugged.
She shook her head and went back inside. “You gotta give the guy credit,” she called over her shoulder. “The paint cans are cute.”
They were more than cute. They were perfect. And the poem was funny. And the guy kissed me in a way that made me feel cherished. “I have my grams’s seventy-second birthday party tonight.” I stared mournfully at the spray paint cans and clutched them a little tighter to me.
“You can always ask him to go with you. It would make your mom happy to see you have a date. "She might think you've finally decided to do your obligation as a woman by marrying a successful doctor and give up the upstart, pretentious notion of actually being one." She smirked at me and rolled her eyes.
I frowned hard enough to give me a headache. “There’s a reason not to take him.”
“You could always take the paint cans, too. If your mom gets out of hand, you and Everett already know how to use them and clearly have no scruples about the whole thing.”
I laughed. “I think you’re on to something.”
“At least we now know who’s been calling.” Janette flopped down on her chair and fixed her eyes back on the pages of her book.
I sat in my chair across from her. “If I take him, would I be doing something stupid?”
She eyed me over the top of her book before putting it back down. “No. I think you are making the first smart relationship choice you’ve ever made. Greg was an emotional thug. He pick-pocketed your feelings and didn’t even leave you fare for the T. Everett’s a nice guy. He has always taken an interest in you. The question is, what are you looking for?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got just under a semester for your undergraduate, four years of med school, another five of residency, and another two of specialized residency. Twelve years is a long time.”
Twelve years was a long time. It felt like a lifetime away when I would belong to myself again. But if I never dated or had human relationships, I would turn into that frosty tyrant I worried lurked underneath my skin. “Why didn’t you mention any of this when I was dating Greg?”
“Greg is a transitory boyfriend. The kind whose fun to kiss and nice to look at, but who is ultimately a go-nowhere road. Everett is a guy with possibilities. So, while I like him and think he’s good for you, the question you have to ask yourself is a simple one: are you a surgeon, or not?”
“I’m a surgeon.” The words came out in a defensive bite.
“Of course you are. I just know you have a mom who would be delighted to see you settled down with a doctor and doing your job of making his friends and colleagues martinis at parties you’re hosting at your house. The one she would buy you so you didn’t have to do anything so mundane as work while he finishes his residency.”
I frowned at the picture Janette so accurately painted. “You know too much about my family.”
“That’s what happens when you drag me with you whenever you have to go visit. If only your mom had turned out like your cute little grams.”
“But see then, my life would be perfect, and I’d have nothing to whine about.”
“Of course. And I’d absolutely hate that,” sh
e said dryly and went back to her book.
I put Everett’s name in my phone alongside the anonymous number that had called all afternoon, and then I texted him an invitation to Grams’s birthday party. I didn’t want to go alone and since he was offering his company for the evening . . .
His response dinged back before I put my phone down on the table.
I would love to, he texted,
He didn’t even question the nearly two hour drive to Connecticut.
I spent more time getting ready than I’d ever spent in my life for any date—in spite of Janette’s warning. A med student would be kind of the perfect boyfriend. He’d understand my time crunches. He’d be able to help with homework. We could study together.
Rebound.
That word kept popping in my head, too. When I was finished slipping into the best little black dress any girl had a right to own and sliding my feet into strappy heels that made me feel tall, I looked in the mirror and squared my shoulders. The dress was perfect, slimming, and sexy without being so over the top, Grams would scowl at me.
Take that, two-timing tool.
Which made my hand halt mid-grab for my clutch purse.
Rebound?
Gah! No. My feelings for Everett had nothing to do with his nefarious roommate. I grabbed the clutch and headed to the front door at the same time the bell rang.
Janette gave me one last look as I reached for the door handle, and her lip lifted in a little half smile. “Whatever you choose, you’ll look great choosing it. Have fun at the ball!”
I abandoned the door and smooshed my roommate up in a big hug. “You always say just the right things.”
“Even when the logic hurts?”
“Especially when the logic hurts.” I swept up the present that sat by the front door and opened the door to meet my date that was anything but logical.
Everett shook me down for information on my family during the entire drive to Hartford. He wanted names and descriptions, ambitions and defeats, topics too sensitive to bring up, political affiliations, religious inclinations.
By the time we arrived, Everett probably knew more about my family than I did. He coasted up the street lined with the cars of guests, who knew what a party meant when that party was being thrown by the Stone family, and ended at the circular drive. “Are you nervous?” I asked.
