by Lori L. Otto
“I could see the ecstasy make its way from somewhere deep inside you to your smile and then to your eyes while we were making love,” she reminisces. I close my eyes, letting myself go back to that weekend with her.
“It makes me happy when I… make you happy,” I tell her. I whisper the last part and duck my head away from the driver, just in case. Although we’d been dating for four years, we’d been sexually active for less than two, and since she had been away at college for much of that time, we were still learning a lot about one another. We hadn’t perfected the art of coming together, so when it happened, I always felt a certain sense of victory.
“Oh, Tria,” she breathes into the phone. Even though she sounds distant, I could recognize that lustful plea in my sleep. “Ohhh, Tria,” she says again. My eyes flicker toward the driver to see if he’s watching, because suddenly I feel very guilty, knowing my girlfriend’s on the other end of the line having an orgasm. And I’m getting very turned on in the backseat of this guy’s cab. I didn’t mean for her to get her rocks off while I was thinking back to our weekend together. I knew that’s where she wanted to take the conversation, but I thought I’d made it clear I wasn’t in any place to do that right now… because I’m left with a hard on, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. “Tria! Ohhh! Fuck me, Trey! Ohhh! Trey! Ohhh!” I have to hold the phone away from my ear since my natural inclination is to join in with her. I have responses to her cries, each and every one of them, and when I get home, I’ll be screaming them aloud to an empty apartment.
“Can you let me out here?” I ask bluntly, making a split decision when we hit a red light. “I’ve already paid with the app. Thanks,” I tell him as I step out, untucking my shirt when I hit the sidewalk. I get my bearings and am grateful to have exited so close to a subway station. Heading underground with the flow of traffic on the pavement, I let Zaina tell me when she’s ready to resume conversation.
“Trey Holland?” someone asks me once I’m through the turnstile.
I nod, my ear to my phone, trying to politely signal to them I’m busy. “If I could just get a picture with you…” I lean in to her as she holds her phone up for a selfie, and then smile as I look into the camera. “Thank you so much!”
“Who was that?” Zaina asks, out of breath.
“I’m waiting for my train. Some girl.”
“I thought you were in a taxi.”
“I was, but you made it pretty uncomfortable for me, so I got the hell out of there,” I tell her, finding it impossible to mask my frustration. “You knew I wasn’t at home, Zai. Why’d you do that?”
“I couldn’t help myself,” she says, laughing. “I didn’t think it really mattered.”
“I’m about to get on a subway looking like a total slouch with a fucking boner,” I tell her, covering my mouth and ducking into the wall to tell her this. “This isn’t funny.”
The 1 train pulls up, and I get in just as she starts to argue with me, trivializing my reasons for being upset with her. I’m sure she can hear the announcements on the train. She has to know that’s a warning. And five seconds later, before I can get a word in anyway, the call is cut off.
chapter five
Coley beats me to The Wit on Wednesday and is sitting at our table in the front of the classroom with a manilla folder under her folded hands. She’s wearing more makeup today, and her hair is silky and straight. I can’t see the freckles on her nose and cheeks today, and I miss them. She barely says hello to me when I come in, seeming very meek, even though we had a nice, long conversation on Monday, when I thought I’d convinced her that I was a pretty average college student, just like her.
“All right, freshmen. Does everyone have their assignments from Monday?” Professor Aslon asks.
A collective “yes” is muttered around the room.
“Take them out and hold them up so I can see,” she says. Coley picks up her envelope and sticks it high into the air, holding it with the hand farthest away from me. It’s no use, Coley.
Professor Aslon walks to a few of the tables where the freshmen sit, cursorily glancing at some of the documents before giving them back to the students. She bypasses our table as she returns to the front of the classroom to deliver her next instruction.
“Now, hand your assignment to your editor."
The freshmen protest while the rest of the room laughs at their reactions. We’ve all been through this exercise before.
“You said you were the audience,” Coley speaks up with genuine fear.
“I am,” our professor says. “But I don’t read anything that hasn’t been edited. I think I mentioned that Monday. Or maybe that wasn’t clear. Regardless,” she says, her louder voice needed over the opposing arguments coming from all around the room, “this is an important lesson for all of you. Freshmen, this isn’t about you. Okay? Stop being self-absorbed. There are going to be times this year when you’re given a tough assignment… something you know your editor may not agree with you on, or may not be interested in reading. You may want to censor your own article, or withhold comments, opinions, or sentences. That’s not what this class is about. Your job is to write the story that your audience needs to read. Write it the way you see it.
"You were all selected for this course for a reason. We know you can write. We know you have opinions. You each have your own style. Give us your all, each and every time, with every story and article you write.
“This assignment should get it all out there. In every first impression piece, there’s at least one thing in there that the writer doesn’t want the editor to see. Most of the time there are at least five things. Yes, it’s a little uncomfortable. Journalism isn’t always comfortable. This is real life.
“But like I said, this isn’t just about you. This is about your editors, too. This is a lesson in objectivity for them, too. They get to edit a piece about themselves. They may want to argue with what you’ve written, but they can’t. This is about your first impression. Your opinion. They don’t have to like it. They may not agree with it. They may know with absolute certainty that you are one-hundred percent wrong about everything you think about them. But they have to take their emotions out of it and edit your piece."
Professor Aslon walks up to our table.
“Trey, I believe you’ve been through this before, haven’t you?”
“I have,” I answer.
“How was it?"
“Embarrassing,” I admit with a nod.
“Did you say something regrettable about your editor?” She knows I did.
“Yes. I said that Monica was a little bitchy.” My classmates laugh at me.
Professor Aslon walks over to Monica, who’s now been promoted to a senior copy editor position this year. “Monica, what did you do about that?"
She grins as she looks at me. “I asked him to explain why he felt that way, first of all… and once he gave me some examples, I suggested we change the word to ‘officious,' because we don’t like using the word ‘bitchy' in stories because it’s a little, um, nescient for Columbia University."
“That’s right. And how did the two of you fare the rest of the semester?”
“Well, together we had the most stories above the fold on the front page, and I invited him to my Christmas party at the end of the semester. We’re friends now."
“All right,” Professor Aslon announces. “You’ve got this class time to work and your own free time to do any suggested rewrites. Remember, you’re not changing content. We’re talking grammar, spelling, vocabulary, structure, refining style… you get the idea. I want to see final versions on Friday. You’re free to go.”
“Trey, I really don’t want you to read this,” Coley says.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s just your first impression of me… it can be completely off base. I promise not to take it personally.”
“Do we have to go over it in the classroom?”
“Nope,” I tell her.
“Can we
go to a bar?"
I look at her questioningly and laugh. “I’m only nineteen. I know you’re even younger than that.”
“I know but… I’m going to need a drink.”
“It can’t be that bad.” I get up and gather my things. “Come on. Aside from a bar, do you have any suggestions on where to go?”
“Somewhere private-ish,” she says. “This is going to be embarrassing.”
“I’ve been there, Coley,” I tell her. “You heard what happened to me. I said Monica was bitchy. I said other things, too. I felt terrible. And I survived. You will, too.”
“Right,” she says under her breath.
“The library?” I ask.
“No. Too many people.”
“Back to the coffee shop?”
“Still too many people.”
“How about Morningside Park? Do you have a class immediately after this?”
“No. I have a lunch break.”
“So do I. If it’s really bad, we can go grab a bite and keep working, if you want. I’ll leave it up to you.”
“You may change your mind about that invitation,” she says, following me down the street to the park.
“Shit, Coley, what did I do to you on Monday to make you say such horrible things about me?” I ask her, smiling, but beginning to worry about what she could possibly have written about me. I thought we had a good interaction on Monday once we started talking.
She covers her face with both of her hands as she walks, tripping over a crack in the sidewalk and causing her red purse to dislodge from her shoulder. Once again, the contents spill onto the ground.
“Does that thing have a zipper?” I ask her, picking up a lipstick container and a prescription pill bottle while she chases mascara that has rolled away from her. She grabs her birth control container just as I reach for it. So she has a boyfriend.
“It’s broken,” she tells me, clearly self-conscious, taking the items back from me and shoving everything into her purse. Of course, all I’m thinking is, why wouldn’t you get a new one? But that’s a question generated by my privileged lifestyle. Maybe she doesn’t have the money to go out and replace a decent handbag because of one inconvenient defect. If she wasn’t so skittish around me, the zipper probably wouldn’t have been needed either time.
“I can’t fix zippers, but I have some Duct tape at my apartment. It’s amazing what that stuff can do,” I tell her, eliciting a smile from her lips. “I’ll bring a roll on Friday.”
We come upon an empty picnic table underneath a large tree, which seems perfectly private-ish enough for our work. When I sit down, Coley seems to agree as she takes a seat opposite mine. I pull out my red pen, ready to do some markups on her work.
“What do we have?” I ask her casually in an attempt to put her at ease, looking at the envelope she’s protecting beneath her fingers.
“Trey, I never thought you’d read this,” she says.
“It’s okay. Stop overthinking this. In two hours, you’re going to look back on this and realize how silly you’re being about this dumb assignment. It means nothing. Seriously.”
Her face falls.
“I didn’t mean that your writing has no value. I hope that’s not how you took that. I just mean you’re putting too much pressure on yourself for this one assignment. It’s really just an icebreaker for both of us. And honestly, Professor Aslon doesn’t even score this one. She reads it, but it doesn’t count toward your grade.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“Okay. Well… let me see what you wrote.”
“You were never supposed to see it,” she whispers, finally pushing her work across the table.
When I open the envelope, I’m surprised to see stanzas on the page. It’s poetry. She wrote a poem. I never expected that format. We’re in a journalism class. We write for The Columbia Daily Witness, not The American Reader.
“You weren’t joking about wanting to be a poet, huh? You are a poet.” She doesn’t respond.
Part I
It apparently has two parts?
His skin is fair, unblemished, smooth and pale.
And she wrote it in iambic pentameter…
His smile caught my eye across the room.
His stature built, he’s not just any male–
Trey Holland is a god, I must assume.
I huff aloud, realizing I made no progress on Monday with my mission to humanize myself to Coley. A god, I am not. I look across the table at her, but she’s got her head tucked into her crossed arms, and I don’t guess she’ll be looking up at me anytime soon. She knows what I’m reading. She knows what she wrote.
My heart rate soared; my pulse began to race
The second that his blue eyes locked on mine.
Embarrassed was the look upon my face.
I knew this intervention was divine.
Since I was young, I’ve had a crush on Trey.
But photos that I’ve seen of him are wrong.
He’s always poised, a rich man’s son cliché.
Perfection, clean cut, mannered, straight and strong.
In suit and tie, he always played the part:
Polite and kind, intelligent and good.
This heir maintained this image from the start.
The role he played, he always understood.
In public, his persona is a lie.
In private, I intend to find out why.
Something in me awakens at this. An alertness; excitement. If she were to see me right now, she’d see a smirk at the challenge she’s made to herself. In eighteen lines, she’s admitted she has a crush on me; she believes our partnership is divine intervention; she knows I’m forced to put on a façade when I’m in the public eye; and in the hour she spent with me, she seems to think there’s something more to me. To top it all off, she put it all out there in the form of a damn Shakespearean sonnet.
Who is this little laureate?
And what will part two say?
I look across the table once more, just to see if courage has roused her to lift her head, her eyes, but she still appears to be completely deflated.
Part II
The guy I met today wore rumpled clothes.
Disheveled tresses fell upon his ear.
A shadow lined his jaw and skimmed his nose
Though five o’clock was nowhere even near.
He laughed aloud like no one else was there.
His prep school language arts, he left behind
When he made gestures, then began to swear
With words like shit and damn; it blew my mind.
While some would be offended, I was not.
I looked at him in awe, in shock–in love
With the idea that Trey and I’d be caught:
Us–cursing, laughing–all of the above.
And then, at once, his eyes grew serious.
Intensity expended; clinched my soul.
The feelings. Passion. Heat. Mysterious.
Unbridled. Rough and rash. Out of control.
“Shit.” My voice startles me. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the awareness of my briefs getting tighter forces out the obscenity. This isn’t the time, nor the place… nor the girl. But seriously. Shit.
He read my thoughts–of this, I have no doubt.
I want to know this guy, inside and out.
I’m breathing heavily at the end of it, trying to figure out what to do with these sonnets. Trying to figure out what to do with these feelings. I have no idea about either.
“Coley.”
“Yeah?” she asks, the sound muffled because she refuses to look at me.
“Hey.” Please let me see your pretty face. She picks up her head and squints her eyes at me with uncertainty. I put my hand on her arm and look into her eyes. “Coley, you can’t turn this in.”
“I can’t?” she asks.
“No,” I state, shaking my head with authority.
“You don’t like them?”
&n
bsp; “It’s not that…”
“Then why?”
Before I can think, I blurt out my reply, just as she guesses what it will be.
“Because it’s poetry?” she asks.
“Because she’ll separate us,” I tell her.
Our responses settle in a silence between us. I think about what she said.
“And that,” I add. That should have been the first reason. The only reason. My concern shouldn’t be whether or not we can stay partners this semester. I have a girlfriend. But in saying what I did, Coley now knows that I, too, have a desire to know her like she wants to know me. “I’m afraid she won’t accept it at all. That she’ll drop you from the class.”
“No!” she says, worried.
“I know!” I agree, equally distressed. We both look surprised at my outburst, neither of us able to breathe in the seemingly electrified air that is starting to suffocate me. If I inhale, I’m afraid these charged particles will escape my lungs and seep out into my bloodstream and begin to affect my heart. Already my pulse feels like it’s being controlled by a drummer on a cocaine binge. Breaking away from the pull of her stare and using up the air I already had, I speak. “I have a girlfriend.”
“I know,” Coley says. Of course she knows. She knows a lot about me already. “Zaina. She’s very beautiful.”
“She is,” I agree, trying–with difficulty–to remember what she looks like. “These poems… Professor Aslon may split us up. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Then you have to start writing something else,” I urge her.
“I’m doing it now,” she says, grabbing her laptop. “I’m starting it right now.”
“Okay, but I still have to read it first. I have to edit it. My reputation is at stake here, too. You have to fix this, Coley.” After I tell her that, I look over the last few lines of her poetry. She obviously read my thoughts on Monday, not the other way around. As she was eating that bite of her blueberry muffin, the fork lingered in her mouth, holding my attention. When she flipped the utensil upside down between her lips before gently scraping off the last crumbs with her perfect teeth.
