Crush

by Celia Loren

  In real life, though, I'd let him nuzzle the space below my ear for a moment longer before backing away. I'd told him I had to go unpack. I'd been very nearly sucked back by the flummoxed expression on his face, the smoothness of his skin as he continued to draw patterns on my body with his fingers—but in the end, I'd jogged back to the dorm. I'd grabbed my shower gear, checked under each stall in the community bathroom, and on stepping into the stall let my imagination take hold. With the help of my trusty, pink, thankfully-waterproof vibrator, I'd touched myself, and experienced in my head what I'd been too afraid to experience up close. Chase Kelly's hands on my nakedness. Chase Kelly's animal thrusts into my pulsing wetness...

  “So why didn't you seal the deal?!” Tara demands, mind-reader that she is. I wonder if my face is glowing from that little bathroom tryst.

  “Ehh. Gotta preserve a little mystery, right?” I shake my hair out to make it seem like this remark comes off the cuff, and Tara appears satisfied—though she shakes her own matted head, taking a slug of her gross Dr. Pepper.

  “I don't get you, Savannah. Life is short, you know.”

  The real truth? It hadn't felt right. I figure I've been waiting for Chase Kelly since I was eleven years old, why should I give it all away on the first day of our reconnection? What's the harm in doing this like a lady? Add to that the fact of my fear—that miserable shadow. As soon as I'd come back to the dorm, I'd balled up the floral dress and thrown it down the garbage chute. Fuck that guy for trying to destroy my future, as well as my past. I refuse to let him haunt me.

  “On the other hand,” Tara drawls, finally lurching out of her nest. (Trevor apparently flew the coop sometime during my non-date.) “He really didn't get the Titanic thing? Because this makes me worry he's an idiot.”

  When I look up at my roomie, she's smiling her bright, constructed smile—but I catch a glint of an eyebrow over her ridiculous sunglasses. I laugh with her, feeling only a little bit bad.

  Fun fact: the week before summer session starts at SDU is called “Fuhgettaboutit,” because everyone is supposed to be drinking themselves into a black-out state every night. My poor old Pa did not seem to realize this when he dropped me off two days ago, claiming that I “should try to get there early. Meet the summer school kids. Learn where the library is, and whatnot.”

  Library, schmi-brary. Tara Rubenstein has other plans in mind.

  Around six p.m., she rallies, jerking herself from a Netflix binge-ing, hungover haze. I still haven't seen my roommate eat anything but Diet Dr. Pepper, a single french fry and water, which of course could explain her ability to slide into catsuits with ease. I've spent the late afternoon actually unpacking, though I'm so distracted it's hard to be precise. Like, I already forget where I've put all my socks. Then again, I'm distracted by many floating hypotheticals:

  Did I make a mistake, not going off to shower with Chase? Have I blown it? Will he ever talk to me again? I want to bug Tara, but it's not like we're actual best friends yet—she could get annoyed with the pesky girl talk. It's then, with a pang, that I remember Zooey, and her thirty unanswered text messages.

  “Oh my God! Hi!” She answers on the second ring. “I worried you died or something!”

  “No, the opposite! Hey, you!” Her voice sounds so far away. Which, of course, makes perfect sense. She is.

  “Hey, you! Man! How is school?”

  “Hasn't started yet. But the campus is pretty.” I glance back into the dorm room, having left the door ajar. Tara is smoking an American Spirit out the window, gazing intently at something (or, more likely, some one) on the green.

  “Is it all jocks and hippies and Camel Toes? Are you living in Clueless?” My best friend laughs, but my first impulse is to defend my new turf.

  “It's not that bad, actually. My roommate is really great. And there's this guy, Trevor—he's pretty cool.”

  “You already met a guy? Damn, California. They sure work fast out West.”

  “Trevor's gay.”

  “Oh. Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed.” There's a beat of silence on the line, which I decide is filled with tension. Why are we being so weird with one another?

  “How's Georgia?”

  “Still shitty. But it misses you.” I feel like I can hear Zooey's mood lift; her tone changes. “There's a new Studio Manager, actually. This chick named Magnus, from Ireland. She's actually a really inspired multi-medium print-maker—she does these Bearden-like cut-out arrangements on canvas, and then paints these lurid Kandinsky scenes on top of them, in pastel. They're really busy pieces but very arresting. I think we're going to–”

  Inside the dorm room, I spy Tara extinguishing her cigarette on the sill, and turning her gaze to the closet. She commences the same ritual from last night: pulling dresses and slips and shoes off the racks, assessing these in the mirror, then throwing them onto the floor in little piles. If I didn't know any better, I'd say crazy is planning to go out again.

  “...so, that's an exciting new development. Not that I ever went in for Student Government, but it would be nice to take an active role in things like our dispensation for art supplies. You know?”

  “Right. Definitely. She sounds great!” Silence on the line, then Zooey lets out an exhausted-sounding sigh.

  “You didn't catch all of that, did you?”

  “No, I'm sorry, Zo. I got distracted.”

  “See something shiny? Some, like, totally cool accessory?”

  “Oh ha, ha.” Tara's face materializes in the doorway. Shockingly, she's already applied a perfect face of make-up—even though it seems like she was in bed ten minutes ago.

  “Hey bitch, there's a show tonight at the Ruby Room. Can you be ready in ten?” She pulls a face at my phone, but it's not an apologetic one. I cover the mouthpiece.

  “I don't have a fake, though.”

  “Doesn't matter. RA Jeff is gonna get us in.”

  “Is that—the RA?”

  Tara just grins her maniacal grin, which I take for a yes. The idea of spending another night in the wake of this adventure-loving pixie is too good to pass up.

  “Hey—Zooey?”

  “Oh my GOD. Who was that?”

  “My roommate. Listen...”

  “You actually let her call you 'bitch'? Oh my God, can you send me a picture of this Regina George?”

  “She's actually really cool. Listen. I have to go.”

  There's some more silence on the line, during which I can perfectly picture Zooey's face. I've never stood up to—well, more like deliberately agitated—my best friend before. Not that I'm some big pushover or anything, but that's just never been our dynamic. In my mind's eye, my old buddy is shocked, her eyebrows raised and joined in an echo of Vivien Leigh. Very Savannah.

  “Have fun with your new girlfriends!” Zo says, over-pronouncing the last word so it comes out mocking. Inside our room, Tara points to an invisible watch. Rolling my eyes, I make my decision. The iPhone clicks off, and the heels click on.

  “I think you'd rock the shit out of this thing,” Tara says, starting a conversation in the middle. “I'm too short for it.” It's like she doesn't believe I brought any of my own clothes to college. I begin to protest, but then the dress materializes in the mirror. It's this funky old paisley print, with a cinched bodice, flared mini A-line skirt, and long, droopy bell-bottom sleeves. This dress looks like something Janis Joplin might have worn on a third date. All I need is a boa.

  “Good, right? Last year the school did Hair, and I was boning a guy in the orchestra pit.” Tara's already half into her own nod to retro: a mod, black and white mini-dress that hugs her form tightly. She clips on a pair of globular enamel earrings to complete the effect, before appraising me. I love this dress. It fits me like a glove, it's comfortable, and it's sexy. I feel way more myself in this get-up than I did in the Marilyn costume.

  “Nice,” Tara allows, before smearing a line of black lipstick across her pout. I'm fluffing my hair—which is remarkably Courtney Love, post-sho
wer—when there's a knock at the door. Tara hustles over to admit a gangly black guy with frameless eyeglasses and a smooth, shaved head. He's wearing a button down white-shirt, dark jeans, and a vest. Of all things.

  “Just popping by to say hey to the new blood,” the stranger says, smiling without showing his teeth. Meanwhile, Tara rolls her eyes as she jams one foot into a white pleather knee-high boot. “I'm RA Jeff, but the ladies call me Jeffrey. And you're?”

  “Avery Lynne.”

  “Transfer?”

  “Yeah. But I grew up around here, actually.” RA Jeff appears half-interested in my answers at best—his gaze is pinned to Tara's wiggling ass, as she fusses with her second pleather boot. The way he drifts around our dorm room makes me certain he's spent a lot of time in here. He locates my roomie's sleek cigarette case, for instance, without even feigning to look for it.

  “Baby doll, you're really gonna wear that? It's not exactly subtle.” RA Jeff murmurs to Tara like they're alone, so I resume getting made up in the mirror. I have to admit: dolling up for an adventure like this is really fun. I wish I'd gone out into the city more, in Savannah.

  “I know you didn't just tell me I don't look fabulous.” At this, RA Jeff backs off. Something in Tara's eyes makes our resident advisor retreat all the way to the hallway.

  “I'll find you hip cats in the lobby,” he says, doffing a fedora I hadn't noticed before. When the door shuts, I stifle a giggle.

  “Wow. That was not who I was picturing, for RA Jeff.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  I backpedal a little, having found myself on the receiving end of Tara's withering gaze yet again. Even her freckles can look...haughty. “Not—come on, that's not what I was thinking. He just seemed like a jazz musician or something. Very...sly.” I pretend to hunt around the room for shoes, well aware that Tara's eyes remain on me. She doesn't bark out some snappy comeback, though. Guess there's a first time for everything.

  “You wanna know what I think?” Tara asks after a moment, while polishing her Mod Squad ensemble with a furry white stole. “You've never been in love. It's rarely who you'd expect, you know. Wait!” I open my mouth to protest, but Tara has suddenly fallen to her knees. She roots around by my headboard until she locates her treasure: that book she flung at my head the other day. The Enlightened Orgasm.

  Clearing her throat dramatically, Tara opens her tome and reads aloud. Her voice is warm, coating the words. “You recognize love when you've never seen it before,” she says, then appears to wait for my response. I say nothing. She looks up at me, blinks her eyes twice behind jeweled faux eyelashes, and snaps the book shut. She smiles her maniacal smile. Via a very small inclination of her head, I understand it's time to go.

  Chapter Seven

  RA Jeff drives us through Hillcrest in a fusty old black Bimmer, which I know is not actually expensive because there's a hole in the floor through which you can see the street go by, if you're riding in the back. I prop my feet up against the passenger's side. Better uncomfortable than dead.

  “Tara tells me you're an artist, in addition to an athlete,” RA Jeff says, as soon as I've maneuvered myself into a yogic position. My body stings a little, given how hard I ran today. Ugh...the pain in my hamstrings just makes me think of that moment by the tree all over again. Am I the biggest fucking idiot in the world for not letting Chase Kelly have his way with me?

  “I bet you'll dig this band we're gonna see, Savannah.” Right. Naturally, RA Jeff will know me by my roommate's baptism. “They're very artsy. I think the genre is 'dream pop.'” Tara extends a lazy hand in my direction, without turning to look at me. A tightly rolled joint is pressed between her fingers. Wordlessly, I take a hit. San Diego zips past, and I lean out the backseat window to exhale and watch its transom, like a dog.

  Once we're inside the crowded club, I quickly lose track of my guides. One minute, Tara and RA Jeff are pressing into a throng of bleach-blonde beautiful people; in the next, they've vanished fully into the haze. It's so hot in the Ruby Room that I find myself fanning the underarms of my cute sixties shift—you know, like a lady does. I stand on go-go boot tiptoe, scanning the sea of ultra-tanned faces the best I can. You'd think that pale, done-up Tara and her hipster companion would stick out like sore thumbs in a place like this. But...no dice.

  “I know what you're thinking,” someone shouts into my ear. “And you're right. This fucking neighborhood has gone to the dogs.”

  I swivel so hard and fast that my hair smacks the would-be assailant across the face (taking some of the “cute run-in” out of the moment), but we recover fast. He's laughing and smiling—in that arch, maddening way of his—as he picks a few strands of my blond tresses out of his mouth.

  Last night's case of mistaken identities suddenly strikes me as laughable. For how could I not have known? Brendan Kelly's hair is scraggly and long in the way of someone who's relied chiefly on natural conditioners for years. He's also got the careless stubble of a guy who shaves only when it occurs to him. When someone jostles me and I'm thrown closer into his orbit, I expect to inhale patchouli oil and B.O.—but am surprised to find the air around my childhood friend un-acrid. He smells like a familiar soap, actually.

  Well—soap, and the burnt vanilla of certain whiskeys I recognize.

  “I like this look,” Brendan is saying to me, seemingly from across some vast space. “Does Dusty Springfield know you raided her wardrobe?” I'm too busy marveling at how time can make the most remarkable shifts in a person's face to register his words at first. He looks the exact same, of course—yet totally different. His cheekbones are sharper, somehow more dominant. Or maybe it's just that he's lost the freshman fifteen he so ambitiously assumed early, in high-school. The puffy, stoner hollows below his eyes have lifted, and it appears he's actually seen some California sun.

  “I like this look,” Brendan says again. I watch his mouth move, registering the rumple develop between his eyebrows at being made to repeat himself. His lips, though cracked, retain a surprising fullness that his brother's haven't. It's like there's more to Brendan Kelly's face. Mysterious crannies and lines, edges alluding to wisdom and wit. He is more finely drawn than his twin.

  His interesting face tilts; Brendan purses his lips. “Parlez vous Anglais?” he asks me slowly, in the garbled French from...oh right, of course. The garbled French from Monsieur Honigsberg's class, our freshman year of high-school. We sat next to one another that year, managing to distract each other so thoroughly that we nearly failed the class. I remember how we studied frantically for that final, our heads bent low over my Dad's kitchen table. No one else had been home, and during our first (of many) “study breaks,” Brendan had the brilliant idea of getting me stoned. “Don't worry,” he'd said, while rolling a J with a focus he never applied to our studies. “If you get too fucked up on this, we'll just drink some of your Dad's gin. Alcohol and marijuana counteract one-another.”

  Unsurprisingly, we'd both gotten C's in French.

  “THANK YOU!” I blurt now, so loud that a few of the surfer dudes in our vicinity swivel in our direction, shoot us a San Diego approximation of the “I'm annoyed” look. Which is to say: a tense grin. That's not chill, bro.

  “Somebody turn spaz in Savannah?”

  “You remembered!”

  Brendan cocks his head again, still not fully convinced of my sanity. I shake my own mane back and forth, as if to reset myself.

  “You're not still at art school?”

  For the first time, the truth feels like a confession. I'm worried Brendan will be disappointed in me, but there are no two ways around it.

  “I've transferred to SDU, actually,” I say, looking away. His eyes, like his brother's, are that same penetrative, algae-green. Yet Brendan's gaze is more intimidating, the way it was when we were children—but why should that be the same today? That's when it hits me. Oh my God. I almost made out with his brother. Earlier today. The memory feels strangely shameful—Chase’s sweaty hands on
my hips, his breath on my neck... I fight the urge to yell this odd, inopportune truth in Brendan's face. He doesn't have the kind of eyes you can keep secrets from.

  “Ah,” my old friend says. I search his eyes for some deeper meaning, but those green pools are inscrutable. Then I wait for him to say he's glad to see me, or that he can't believe I'm here, but...nothing.

  “I want to be closer to my Dad,” I continue, defensive for some reason. “And...yeah. I've got some good buddies here,” I gesture vaguely toward where I think Tara and RA Jeff have vanished, but Brendan doesn't track my hand. He won't stop staring me down.

  In the ensuing silence, I allow myself to take further stock of this strange new person I used to know. He's eschewed the surfer look, in favor of a devil-may-care, rockstar in '76 attitude. Black t-shirt, ripped from wear at the collar, frayed at the bottom. Red skinny jeans, so snug they make his legs into proper stovepipes. I can't help noticing that his legs are less apparently muscular than his brother's, though their arms are comparable—thick and ropy, all sinew and bone. Only, along Brendan's right forearm, there lies a long, hand-drawn peacock feather tattoo, rendered in black and green. My heart is beating fast. It's the music, surely. Has to be.

  “You were always such a wonderful artist, though.” When I regain the confidence to look up into his eyes again, I'm relieved. He's smiling.

  We're okay now.

  It's not awkward.

  “Thank you kindly,” I exhale. Someone knocks my elbow again, spinning me back into the envelope of warm boy smell: soap, whiskey. Brendan doesn't flinch from (or advance toward) the proximity, so I stay close.

  “I have so many questions for you,” I say, still way too loud. “Like, what have you been up to for the past few years? And your music stuff! My Dad said something exciting about your band on the radio?” I will straight-up keep babbling if he does not cut me off. “I'm actually here to see a band. With some real friends. I mean, I didn't make them up, or anything. Ha.”