by Camryn Eyde
“Going out,” I called through the bathroom door as I left.
“Wait!” Olivia poked her head out, shoulders bare and a towel wrapped around her. “I need…what?”
Snapping out of my instant need to stare, I pointed to her shoulder. “You have a tattoo.” And really nice clavicles, my anatomy-fixated mind produced. I smiled at myself.
She looked suspicious. “It’s just a tattoo, not a national secret,” she said, misinterpreting my look. Perhaps she thought I was going to blackmail her with its existence.
“What is it?” I asked, stepping closer. She flinched.
“An owl.”
“Why?” I peered at it and saw a small owl in flight high on her upper arm.
“Wisdom.”
“Or a Harry Potter freak.”
She fidgeted and I saw a blush move up her neck. Fascinating as that was to witness, I put two-and-two together. “Seriously? You have a Hedwig tattoo?”
“Hedwig is white, you imbecile. This is Pigwidgeon. Ron’s owl.”
I grinned. “Dork.”
“Ugh!” She turned and slammed the door of the bathroom in my face. “I need feta cheese. Please get me some while you’re out pretending to improve your cardiovascular fitness.”
Making a face at the door, I left without responding. Running along the street a short while later, I burst into a fit of giggles. Olivia was a Potter-head. I instantly added that to her list. That and skeptical. There was no way anyone could pretend to run. Puffing and panting as I arrived at the 7-Eleven, I double-over and forced air into my lungs. Running sucked, but it certainly wasn’t pretend. Unsure that my cardiovascular strength was being improved or compromised, I found some feta cheese and a frozen pizza before jogging back home and swigging from a soda bottle. All this exercise hopefully negated my woeful, non-medically approved diet.
I had to stop to wipe soda from my top as I misjudged my coordination and ended up staring at a Help Wanted sign. I stepped back and looked at the name of the business. Sunny’s Dry Cleaning. I bit my lip and stepped closer to the door. Cupping my hands, I peered inside. It was dark. I made a mental note to come back tomorrow to ask.
I burst into the apartment after scaling the stairs like a champion and Olivia yelped.
“Sorry.”
“Must you be so Neanderthal?”
“Yup.” I shoved the feta in the fridge and tossed my pizza in the oven. Olivia was grimacing when I turned back around. “What?”
“Pizza, again?”
I shrugged. “So?”
“You’re studying to become a doctor, yet you insist on clogging your arteries on a daily basis.”
“They’re my arteries to clog. Why do you care?”
“I don’t, except for the fact that junk food of yours smells revolting. Ever thought to actually cook something edible?”
I sniffed and scratched behind my ear. “Not really. I can’t cook.”
Olivia frowned at me. “Is that why you constantly fill your body with rubbish?”
“Pizza has vegetables on it. And dairy. It’s not all rubbish.”
“It’s refined flours and carbs. It’s vile and fit only for rats.”
“I don’t have pizza all the time. Sometimes I order Chinese.”
“Which contains a bevy of preservatives and questionable meats.”
I shrugged. I didn’t care. It filled the hole in my stomach.
Olivia stormed over to the oven, pulled out my pizza and threw it in the bin.
“Hey! That’s my dinner…and breakfast. Lunch, too, probably,” I said, trailing off morosely. I felt like I was about to cry. I was starving.
“I refuse to smell burnt cheese and fried fat again. You are going to learn how to cook.”
“I what?”
“You heard.” Olivia scribbled down something on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. “Fetch these ingredients.”
Eyes wide, I felt my slightly clogged heart pound erratically. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I mean, I can’t afford to. Not until Thursday.”
Olivia huffed. “Fine.” Opening the fridge, she yanked out eggs, ham, and some green leafy things. “Come here. You’re making an omelet.”
I cringed.
Half an hour later, I patted my stomach and sighed happily. “That was amazing. Thank you.”
Olivia smiled and tipped her head in my direction. “You’re welcome.”
“I can’t believe I made that.”
“Proves that anything is possible.”
“Har-har.” I picked up our empty plates and started the dishes. Considering she just showed me how to feed myself, it was the least I could do. After putting the last dish away, I approached her carefully with the plan I had been formulating while my hands were in the soapy water. “Umm…”
She cocked her head at me as she looked up from her textbook. “Yes?”
“You know how to cook.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t.”
She scoffed in agreement.
“Will you cook for me?”
Her eyebrows smacked into her forehead. “Excuse me?”
“I, umm, well…I’ll contribute to the food and wash up after.”
“While I act as your personal chef?”
“No, not exactly.” I groaned and sat in the chair at my study desk and looked over to Olivia. “Okay, maybe that is what I’m asking. Maybe you can teach me some stuff? Enough so I can cook more than omelets and then I’ll leave you alone.”
“And what, exactly, do I get from this?”
“A personal dishwasher?”
“And?”
“Umm…” I scratched at my eyebrow. “I’ll clean the bathroom for the rest of the school year.”
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, looking interested, but not convinced.
“I’ll stop drinking straight from the milk bottle.”
Her face contorted to one of disgust. “You drink straight from the bottle?”
“No.” I looked anywhere but at her horrified expression. “Of course not. I was just saying that, if I did, I’d stop.”
“Damn right you’ll stop.” She shuddered in revolt. “Fine,” she snapped a moment later. “You have bathroom duty, weekly bathroom duty, dishwashing duty, and you’ll stop being a repulsive wretch with my milk.”
I grinned, victorious and enthusiastic about being nutritionally proactive. “Awesome. Thanks.” I dashed across the space between us and hugged her spontaneously. She was like hugging a plank. All stiff and splintery.
“You will also never do that again,” she said when I pulled away.
“You betcha.” I winked at her, earning an eye roll.
Chapter Three
I scored the job at Sunny’s Dry Cleaning, and subsequently spent half of my weekends, and two weeknights trying not to identify the stains on the clothes I was handling. My study time plummeted by sixteen hours each week, and I felt like my doctor portion of my brain was being replaced with trying to remember what solvents matched what stain. Pre-treatment, hydrocarbon solvent ratios, post-spotting techniques, pressing and folding—it was all I could think about. I took that as necessary collateral damage for my new-found ability to afford what Olivia called proper food, and discovered I had managed to save some of it too. I spent that savings the instant it reached the amount that would buy me a return ticket home for Thanksgiving. Mom’s turkey was an institution, and I deserved the reward after months of classes, study, working and living off zero sleep.
Thanksgiving approached with a hurry. Halloween, my all-time favorite holiday of the year, came and went with a minimum amount of decoration in the apartment. All I got away with thanks to the Scrooge McDuck of Halloween was a picture of a carved pumpkin on my door. I made up for the lack of decorations with candy. A lot of candy. As I studied for my practical exam in anatomy, I was still crunching on my abundant supply of Reese’s peanut butter bites. Eac
h time I crunched, Olivia, who was working diligently at the desk beside me, stiffened and rolled her shoulders. I did my best to chew quietly lest she tosses my booty in the bin.
“Tell me,” I said, interrupting the silence. “What happens during each step of the myosin-actin cross bridge cycle?”
Olivia glanced over at me and frowned. I assumed she was thinking. “Are you serious?”
I nodded and sucked on another Reese.
She huffed at me. “Fine.” Taking a breath, she was about to answer when my phone rang. A Britney Spears hit sounded through the apartment.
“Hang on,” I said, holding up a finger. Olivia scowled as I answered. “Taylor, how are you?”
“Hey there, stranger. I’m great. I’m in love. Your tips worked.”
My face fell in an instant. Eventually advising my friend to be aloof and non-responsive to Charli were supposed to turn the woman off, not make her catch the woman I loved. “Oh?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, your imaginary lover ran off with the store girl?” she muttered with a sneer. Olivia didn’t appreciate my need to mumble about Taylor aloud. Told off for mumbling, I went for normal-volume conversational tone, and even though Olivia looked like she wanted to murder me, I got to tell someone about my relationship woes. I was allowed five minutes a day on the topic after Olivia got over the fact that glaring at me didn’t make me stop.
I sneered at Olivia who looked to be enjoying herself.
“I can’t wait for you to meet her,” Taylor said.
“Yeah. It should be awesome.” I grimaced and Olivia cracked a rare smile as she pretended not to listen in.
“Is it going to be weird? You know, me introducing my gay best friend to my girlfriend?”
Hell, yes. It was going to be awful, awkward and in every way weird. “No weirder than me introducing you to my girlfriend, I guess.”
“You’re with someone?” Taylor practically gasped in my ear.
“What?”
“Is she coming with you?” Taylor’s voice sounded odd. Like she was trying to be all light and disinterested.
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend.”
I screwed up my face in confusion and shook my head. Taylor was sounding weird. Like maybe she was jealous. I gasped. Taylor Robbins sounded jealous of a girlfriend I didn’t even have. Lightbulb moment. “I, ah, don’t know.” Maybe this was my angle. Maybe this was how I was going to finally make headway with Taylor. Going with the story, I said, “I think she has plans, so I’m waiting to hear back from her.”
There was a lengthy silence before she asked, “It’s Olivia, isn’t it?”
“Olivia?” I looked up as the woman in question looked over at me with her head cocked.
“She’s been domesticating you, with all those cooking lessons. Did you find a way to…thank her?” Taylor sounded quiet now.
“Taylor, my sex life is not open for discussion.” I slapped my forehead when I replayed that. It sounded like an admission of sleeping with Olivia. Olivia, for her part, looked appalled. Fair enough, I thought.
Taylor gasped this time. “Oh, my God. You really did sleep with her. Didn’t you?”
“No, I haven’t slept with Olivia.”
Olivia made a strangled noise in her throat. I looked at her in concern, wondering if she was about to vomit.
“So, she’s not your girlfriend?”
I panicked. Taylor had shown some inclination of interest for the first time ever, I think, and no way in hell was I about to lose it. I turned around, tucked my chin into my chest and said as quietly as I could, “Yes, she’s my…girlfriend, but no, we haven’t…” I cleared my throat and blushed. “It’s really none of your business.” I peeked back to see if Olivia heard me. Affirmative. I averted my gaze from the lasers of Olivia’s blue eyes boring into me. I’m in trouble. Olivia stood and closed the distance between us. God, she was intimidating. I added it to my list.
“So you invited her to come up?”
“I…yes?”
“So you’re both coming tomorrow?”
“Yeah, straight after our anatomy exam.”
“That’s great. Umm…see you soon then?”
“Yep. See you soon.”
“Love you.”
“Yep,” I said, quickly hanging up the call as Olivia reached for my phone.
“Are you mental!” Olivia screeched.
Cowering away, I shook my head. “She thought I was with someone and jumped to conclusions. I’m sorry, it was out of my control.”
“How is telling her a complete lie out of your control. You just told her I was your girlfriend!”
“She was jealous,” I said, standing and still finding myself looking up into her eyes. “She sounded hurt.”
“Perhaps because you hadn’t told her about your fake girlfriend yet. Ever think of that?”
All the wind left my sails. No, I didn’t think of that angle at all. I shared everything with Taylor, so her suddenly thinking I had a girlfriend thanks to a few misunderstood words must have stung. I swore under my breath and sat down. No matter how hard I tried, there was still that flicker of hope in my chest that perhaps Taylor had been jealous, and not just hurt that her friend hadn’t disclosed vital information. Mulling over that as Olivia paced in agitation around the apartment, I turned on my best puppy dog eyes and looked over at her.
She froze when she glanced at me. “No,” she said abruptly.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? In fact, I should be asking you that. Why, Darcy, do you think me pretending to be your girlfriend is going to help with your ridiculous infatuation with your best friend?”
“Because then she’ll see how great I am as a partner. I’m perfect for her, but I never had the nerve to tell her how I felt.”
“Perhaps that’s exactly what you should be doing, confessing your feelings, not creating an elaborate ruse to force her into action.”
“It’ll help me see if she wants me. If she’s jealous, then I know she feels something for me. Please. I’ll do anything you want.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I said no. I’m not going to parade myself around as if I’m attracted to you.”
“Please?” I stood, my hands pressed together in a beg. “I’ll stop watching TV. I’ll stop singing under my breath. I’ll throw out all my Reese pieces. Anything.”
“What part of no do you not understand?”
“I’ll cook for the rest of the school year.”
Olivia surprised us both with laughter. “How is that beneficial to me in any fashion?”
Offended, I propped my hands on my hips. “Hey, I can cook. I learned from the best.”
She gave me a shrewd look and pointed her finger in my direction. “Sweet talking won’t get you anywhere.”
“I can cook the basics. Omelets. Salad. Chicken. Pasta. Think of all the time it’ll save you. All that time you could spend studying instead.” I added more incentive. “I’ll do the laundry, in fact, I can do it as I work at Sunny’s. There’s another hour or two saved. I can, I can…” I looked around the apartment for more bribery material. “I’ll be your slave.”
Olivia sucked her bottom lip into her mouth ever-so-slightly, chewing on the inside of the flesh. That was her tell that she was thinking her options over.
“You will use the shower timer.”
I deflated. I loved my long hot showers and detested having to be restricted to five minutes on non-hair-washing days, but I was desperate to see if my inkling was right. “Fine.”
“You will stop your daily whining about Taylor.”
I doubted that was possible, but I said, “Fine. Anything.”
“Very well. On this one occasion, I will pretend to be your…girlfriend.” She said the word like it was bitter on her tongue.
I groaned. At least no one would be surprised when we pretended to break up, too.
“You’re paying for my ticket.”
I grimaced at Olivia�
��s departing form. Damn.
After scrubbing the feel of Dolores off our hands, Olivia and I left the examination lab together.
“How did you think you did?” I asked her as the taxi took us to the airport, wondering if I had labeled the parts of my cadaver correctly.
“I’m sure I’ll pass.”
“Me too. I think I mixed up the connective tissue at the end, though.” Time was running out, so I hastily labeled the anterior nerves and tendons of the wrist I had to inspect.
“Perhaps if you snacked less when studying, you’d have retained that information instead of wasting energy on metabolizing sugar.”
“The Reese’s? Yeah, maybe.”
Olivia’s gaze dropped to my hips and thighs. “Sugar not instantly utilized gets stored elsewhere.”
“Yes, I know that. Why do you think I run? I have to maintain this figure somehow.”
“You run so you can eat more rubbish. Your figure would maintain itself if you didn’t ingest greasy foods every day of the week.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Paying our cab driver and waiting silently in the terminal, we were soon airborne and headed for Duluth. Leveling out at thousands of feet above ground, I swore swiftly and rather loudly, earning the scorn of every mother and grandmother that could pinpoint me. Olivia covered her face, pretending she didn’t know me. She did, however, whisper, “What is wrong with you?”
“I’m about to come out to my parents!” I said with a harsh urgent whisper. “Oh, God. Oh, God. I didn’t think this through.”
Olivia had the nerve to chuckle at that.
“Shut up,” I muttered before wrapping my arms around my head and rocking back and forth like a crazed person.
Olivia stopped chuckling and stilled my movement with a hand on my shoulder. “If they love you, it will be okay.”
