by Sarah Kleck
Intentions? I thought this was about dinner.
Of course! Just about dinner.
When should I be there?
I was surprised by how fast I agreed.
How’s 7?
He sent his address, and I decided to stop the chat. I didn’t want to draw out our flirtation too long.
Good. I’ll be at your place at 7.
OK.
I had the feeling he would have liked to have chatted a bit more.
Till tomorrow, Holden. :-)
He had earned this smiley.
See ya, Annie. Sleep tight. ;-)
You, too.
I closed the chat window and closed the laptop.
“Annie.” Grace knocked gently.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been standing out there the whole time.”
“Not the whole time,” the muffled answer came through the door.
“Well, come in, you wacko.”
Grace burst into my room with a grin and hopped on the bed. “Well?” she asked, all excited.
“I’ve got a date!”
“Really? Wow, that was fast. When?”
“Tomorrow night. He invited me to his place.”
Grace’s disapproving look stopped me.
“Because of his leg,” I explained right away. “He can’t drive and . . .”
“Do you think that’s a good idea? Can’t he come here?”
“He can’t drive.”
“Well, I can pick him up.”
I frowned. “Really? Wouldn’t that be somehow weird?”
“Better somehow weird than chopped in pieces in a freezer.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for that image.” But that and the serial killer mentions persuaded me. “OK. So, I won’t have him here yet. How about Emmets?”
Emmets Irish Pub was a cozy place on Beacon Street. The beer was good, the food decent, and the prices unbeatable.
“Why ask me?”
“Well, you have a car.”
“Do you want me to come along? On your date?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Or you lend me your car.”
Her eyes took on a serious look. Grace shared almost everything with me—just not her almost new Audi A3. It was sacred. “OK, I’ll drive,” she finally said.
I quickly reopened the chat window and messaged Holden to let him know the change in plans.
The next night, at seven o’clock sharp, Grace, the Audi, and I were outside Holden’s door. He crutched down the stairs of the red-brick building, one step at a time, his eyes smiling even before his lips did when he saw me.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” I’d somehow pictured our first encounter turning into shades of humiliation. But it wasn’t embarrassing at all. I was just happy to see him. Judging by the broad grin on Holden’s face, he felt the same. I exhaled with relief.
“Any way I can help you?”
“I’m fine. I can manage on my own if you just hold the door open.”
I opened the passenger door as wide as I could.
“Thank you.” He was so close to me that I could smell the scent of his skin. He smelled good. Very good. And, wow, his eyes were blue. I mean, I’d already seen from afar his eyes were blue, but just how freaking blue they were only hit me then. I swallowed.
“Hi, Grace,” he said, not taking his eyes off me.
I’d almost forgotten she was here, too.
“Hi, Holden,” Grace said, adding an unnecessary “Watch you don’t scratch it getting in, OK?”
Holden grinned, landed on the passenger seat, and heaved in his casted left leg, then his right leg. He stashed his crutches beside him. They extended from the foot space to the headrest. I stood beside him the whole time, fumbling pointlessly while trying to somehow help him. Finally, I got into the back and Grace drove off.
Holden turned to me. “I should have been holding the door for you. Next time, OK?”
“Next time?” I repeated sardonically. “Let’s see how tonight goes first.”
Grace slipped me a broad grin in the rearview mirror.
“Challenge accepted,” Holden said.
When we arrived, he awkwardly got out of the car. While he hurried ahead as well as he could to hold the pub door open, I took Grace by the wrist.
“Please be nice,” I pled with her in a whisper.
She glanced at me dismissively.
“This time . . . I think it’s different this time.”
“You’re really into him, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
Grace smiled. “OK. I’ll be nice to him. Promise.”
Emmets was packed to the rafters, like always. The typical mix of brouhaha and beer fog hit us at the door. I’d thought ahead and reserved a table where it wasn’t so loud.
“What would you like? I’ll get it,” Grace offered as soon as we’d fought our way through to the far corner. This was one of those pubs where you ordered at the bar, and since Grace was the one with the impeccable fake ID, it was up to her. After a quick glance at the menu, I decided on a Caesar salad and a Foster’s. Holden also asked for a Foster’s—his with a cheeseburger. Grace disappeared toward the bar, and we were alone.
“Here we are,” I said, suddenly feeling lost. I stared at my hands and began to pick at the napkin.
Holden cleared his throat. “You’re just finishing your sophomore year, aren’t you?” he asked.
I looked up, realizing that after the first excitement, he was nervous, too.
“Yes. In my junior year, I’ll start focusing on my major. Biochemistry. That’s always been my thing. I won the National Junior Scientist Competition in eleventh grade. That got me the scholarship to Harvard. And biochem seems to be the best choice for me. It should give me a decent chance of landing a job.”
Whoa. Hold back a bit! Did he ask for the full biography?
My inner voice has always been my harshest critic. Great, I was blushing. I smiled artificially, put on my enough-about-me-let’s-hear-about-you face, and asked, “What about you?”
“A scholarship? Not bad. I’ll probably work for ten years just to get rid of my loan.” He cocked his mouth into a crooked grin. “My major is mechanical engineering.”
“And? Do you like it?”
He frowned. “It’s OK. I’m not as passionate about it as it seems you are about biochemistry, but I think it’s something I could keep doing. Where I’ll get a job is the question. I don’t want to leave Boston. I’m going to be a senior, so I’ve got to figure it out.”
“Right, you’re from here,” I said. Holden’s voice and Boston accent were so pleasant that my initial nervousness turned into genuine interest after a few words. I wanted to get to know this good-looking guy with the blue eyes and crooked smile sitting across from me.
“Yeah. From Winthrop. Where are you from?”
“Lakewood. A hick town south of Seattle.” I smiled. “You’ve probably never heard of it.”
“The West Coast, wow.” He nodded, impressed. “You’re a long way from home.”
I snorted quietly at the thought. “This is home now,” I said, keeping my answer simple.
Holden frowned, as if he meant to ask what was buried in my words. He was about to speak when something bumped against the table.
“Ugh! You just about have to blow the bartender to get a beer here.” Grace plopped the drinks on the table and wiped the spilled beer from the back of her hand.
I sat back with a start. I’d leaned so far across the table toward Holden that I was sitting on the edge of my chair. “And, as you can hear, Grace is from Obscenia.”
Holden laughed.
“Westchester, New York,” she corrected, raising her glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
Grace being there made everything really relaxed. More like a good time with friends than a date. Except that I felt like I might fall in love with one of them. Even though I would have gotten along well with Holden after overcoming the in
itial awkwardness, I preferred things this way. Classical dates were never my thing. I always found the what-are-you-doing-I’m-doing-this ping-pong strained and unnatural. Now I was enjoying myself. And I was still able to ask about things that interested me.
Holden was just finishing up a short anecdote about his housemate Kyle, who had the weird habit of hanging up his underwear to dry in the hallway, which was especially awkward when Holden’s grandmother visited. The way he imitated Kyle’s voice and his grandma’s facial expression was so hilarious that Grace and I almost fell from the chair laughing.
“So, what did he say?” I gasped for air.
“He told her he’d just washed them and, to prove it, held one of his Calvin-Klein boxer shorts right under her nose.”
We laughed so loud people started to stare at us.
“That was the one and only time Grandma visited me,” Holden said, while I was wiping the tears out of my eyes.
“Oh man, you’ve got to introduce us,” Grace giggled. “How do you know him?”
“The apartment belongs to his dad, he was looking for a housemate, I answered his ad, one thing led to another.”
“So, you don’t know him from school?” I asked.
“No. Kyle . . . to be honest, I’m not sure what he does all day. He was enrolled at Northeastern at some point, but he hasn’t gone there for a while. His dad is loaded, so Kyle is worming his way through life.”
I laughed, giving Grace a push. “Sounds like your type.”
“Ha ha,” she feigned, suddenly looking all serious. “Very funny. Grace spreads her legs for every loser.”
I was stumped. “It was just a joke. Come on!”
She smiled, but I could tell she was still in a huff. While Holden and I continued to talk, she mostly stayed silent. Suddenly, she leaned back, stretched her arms over her head, and yawned. I gave her a short, questioning look before turning back to Holden’s story. A couple of minutes later, Grace leaned back again and opened her mouth so wide you could see all the way down her throat.
“What are you doing?” I hissed as Holden briefly looked away.
“I’m trying to yawn,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Checking his empathy,” she mumbled.
I was only able to muster an annoyed, questioning look as my answer.
“I want to see if his mirror neurons will activate . . . ,” she said.
“What?” I hissed.
“Mir-ror neu-rons,” she repeated as if I were a moron.
“I got it, but why the hell are you acting like this?” I answered with my teeth clenched, almost like a ventriloquist.
Holden raised his eyebrows and stared at us.
Grace smiled and typed in her phone before trying to feign another yawn.
“Stop it!” I cuffed her under the table.
Grace opened her eyes wide and tried to signal that she’d sent me a message.
At that moment, Holden grabbed my phone and read aloud from the Wikipedia entry Grace had sent. “A mirror neuron, or cubelli neuron, is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron ‘mirrors’ the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.”
He quickly looked up, a quizzical expression on his face. Then he continued. “This researcher argued that mirror neurons are the neural basis of the human capacity for emotions such as empathy.” Holden gave Grace an amused look. “That’s what the yawning is all about,” he observed.
I looked at Grace with disbelief and pocketed my phone. I didn’t quite know what to make of Holden just snatching it away from me like that.
“Damn it, you promised to behave yourself, Grace!” I hissed when we had gotten into the car after a few hours at Emmets. Holden wanted to manage on his own again and was distracted handling his crutches and the door. “What was with that yawning stuff?”
“Wait a minute,” she said, raising her right index finger. “I only promised to be nice to him. Nothing was ever said about behaving myself.”
I swallowed the curse on my tongue because Holden awkwardly maneuvered into the passenger seat. Grace cranked up the music, making conversation impossible. I was glad to get to his place.
“Wait, let me help you,” I said, quickly getting out and helping him onto his crutches.
“Thanks.” He smiled, and turned to Grace, who was watching us with eagle eyes. “Thanks for driving, Grace. And . . . everything else.” Then he turned to me. “Will you walk me to the door?”
“Sure,” I said and gave Grace, who was still staring at us, an admonishing look. When we’d arrived on the top step of the outside stairs, I helped Holden open his door. The moment of departure had arrived. My mouth was suddenly dry. Would he kiss me now? In front of Grace? While I was still deciding whether I wanted that or not, Holden took a small step backward. OK. No kiss. Not coming from him in any case. Even though I wasn’t sure if I really wanted one yet, I was a little disappointed.
How would his lips feel?
Damn, why didn’t I simply accept his invitation? We’d have been all alone. Undisturbed.
“Are you going to stay in Boston through the summer?” he suddenly asked me.
“Yes, I am.”
He smiled sincerely. “That was a pleasant evening,” he said after a long moment in which he looked at me without saying a word. “But . . .”
“But?”
He grinned, frowning. “Do you think the next time only the two of us could meet?”
I laughed. “Yes. Definitely yes.”
Chapter 8
Grace and I were on the outs with each other for days after. That had never happened before. I finally apologized for my careless remark about Kyle being her type and assured her that I didn’t think of her as a slut. And she apologized to me for that mirror neuron nonsense. We hugged and made up.
“So, what do you think of Holden? Be honest.”
“He’s nice,” she answered.
“Nice?” She’d been obsessed with getting us together but now she thought he was only nice?
“He passed the Grace test.” She smiled. “I didn’t set this up without good reason.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” I valued her opinion, but my feelings for him wouldn’t have been different if she hadn’t liked him.
She looked at me carefully. “Are you into him?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I couldn’t keep myself from smiling.
“It’s been a few days. When are you seeing each other again?”
“Tonight.”
“His place?”
“Yes.”
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think that’s OK.”
“Oh. Thanks, Mom.”
She grinned, then pointed her finger at me. “Be home by midnight, young lady.”
I was at Holden’s door at six thirty. We’d been in constant contact since the evening at Emmets. Messenger chat, email, texting—we were doing the whole social media thing. Sometimes we messaged late into the night. We wrote about anything and everything that came to mind. About him, about me, classes, friends, hobbies, favorite foods, our parents. I had the feeling I’d known Holden for an eternity. He must have been feeling the same. I don’t know why, but typing on a screen, I was willing to reveal things about me that I wouldn’t have told him until much later face-to-face, if at all.
Suddenly, my hands started to sweat. Had I already told him too much about me? What if we ran out of things to talk about? My mouth went dry. I was standing on his doorstep. Deal with it. I rang the doorbell and straightened my blouse. Ten seconds later, the door opened.
“On the dot.” Holden beamed at me, taking my breath away for a moment. I’d looked at his Facebook profile photo for hours, studied his face, memorized his features—the curve of his lips, the gentle arch of his eyebrows, the edge of his chin, the deep blue of his eyes. But his face was so much more beautiful in the flesh that I felt as if I were
really seeing him for the first time.
Holden looked me over. “You look stunning,” he said without intending to compliment me. He simply said it in a matter-of-fact way, like he might say, “Your hair is brown.”
“Thank you. You too.” With his broad shoulders, athletic physique, the blush of nervous red on his cheeks, and his leg cast, Holden embodied an irresistible mixture of strength and vulnerability. My heart pounded.
Breathe, Annie, breathe!
Again, that knock-me-over-with-a-feather smile. A smile of anticipation, enthusiasm, and tenderness.
“Come in.” He took a step aside, motioning along the hallway with an inviting gesture. I passed by him. The first thing I noticed were the two pairs of Calvin Klein boxer shorts dangling from an improvised clothes line across the hallway. I broke out laughing.
“I presume that is your housemate’s legendary underwear.”
Holden took a deep breath. “Sorry. I didn’t notice them—I guess I’ve gotten so used to them that I don’t see them anymore.”
Embarrassed, he scratched his chin.
“Is Kyle here?”
“No. I asked him to scram for a few hours. Do you want the tour?”
“I’d love it.”
The apartment was small. Other than Holden’s room, the bath, and the kitchen with a small table, there was only Kyle’s room, which we skipped, of course. There wasn’t a living or common room, like at Grace’s and my place.
We wound up back in the kitchen where a delicious aroma from the oven met my nose.
“You cooked?” I asked surprised. “I thought we were going to order something in.”
“Well. I don’t have guests that often. So, I thought if you were going to be here, I might as well put a little effort into it.”
My smile came from the heart. “What are we having?”
“Lasagna.”
“Really! That’s my fave.”
He grinned. “I know.”
For a moment I was so fixated on his perfect teeth that I almost forgot what we were talking about. “But how . . .” I frowned but clued in before he could answer. “Grace,” I said.
Holden nodded.
Grace was unbelievable. Even while we were pissed off at each other, she’d helped Holden organize the date. I was touched.
