One Less Problem Without You

by Beth Harbison

  Kathy was eighteen. “Problem areas” wasn’t even a term she should know yet. That was an expression usually reserved for postpregnancy mothers shopping in the full-figure sections of department stores. Not for eighteen-year-old girls living out the last few weeks of senior year.

  What must it feel like for them? she wondered as she sat outside on the bench with her backpack on her lap, at the perfect viewing distance from the popular kids.

  It was hard not to watch them when they were all together. She’d worry about looking like a longing creep, except they never bothered looking outside their own little realm. They were all used to inviting and performing for an audience. Feeling gazes on them was such par for the course that they didn’t seem to notice it anymore.

  The crowd of beautiful people was gathered outside the cafeteria by the picnic tables. Guys sat with their knees apart enough to make a space for their girlfriends to stand and coo over them (not much distance needed). One twosome—voted in superlatives last month as Cutest Couple—stood together, him leaning against one of the tables, his hand resting comfortably on her butt. The fabric on the sundress she wore was thin, and showed the exact shape of her beneath.

  Two of the girls sat leaning back on propped arms, letting the sun sink into their skin. Both had their bellies showing under midriff tops. No—“belly” implied something that wasn’t there; even “stomach” sounded too round for what they had between hip and chest. They were absolutely flat boards. Kathy wondered how they had space for their organs in there. Or maybe even their organs were petite and cute.

  Kathy wasn’t bitter about any of this. She had the things that mattered more. A good family. A cozy bedroom. A Labrador retriever that was on her heels the second she got home. And she had her best friend, and they were headed off to the same school in the coming autumn. She didn’t feel the anger or resentment that often went along with unpopularity. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t fascinated by them. Especially …

  He emerged from the cafeteria, practically in slow motion with a fan blowing and a soundtrack playing for him.

  Leif Tiesman. Kathy felt sure that no one could possibly blame her for being hopelessly in love with him. Come on! He was the stuff of fairy tales. The stuff of time-travel romances, back to the days of chivalry and manly men. The stuff of steamy music videos.

  And he didn’t have a girlfriend. He didn’t date the head cheerleader, as the usual script called for. In fact, he’d never had a girlfriend. He “hung out” with people for different periods of time but never seemed to settle into anything.

  One of the things that made him even hotter? Out of all the girls he’d hooked up with, a handful of them weren’t the school’s Most Wanted, just normal girls. In fact, one of them had glasses and braces. She was really pretty beyond those things—Kathy would never have judged her whatsoever—but it was just a little surprising that Leif had looked beyond the usual “hot guy roadblocks” and seen her for who she was. It was more than surprising, really. It was awesome.

  Judy came out of the back doors and walked over to Kathy.

  “I am beyond overwhelmed,” she said.

  “Why?” Kathy scooted over to make more room for her.

  “All this studying for finals and I can’t get any focus in class! All anyone can talk about is prom, and it’s like all of my teachers are ready for the school year to be over, too. It’s like, hello? I’m still learning here?”

  “Oh, you’re going to be fine.”

  “Maybe! Who knows at this point? It’s like, sorry, college, I guess I’ll just drown when I get to you. I still haven’t mastered the algorithm for Tesla’s—”

  “It’s Kate, right?”

  The two girls looked up to see Leif standing in front of their bench, sun behind him. Kathy could practically smell the sun on his bronzed shoulders.

  It wasn’t Kate. It was Kathy. Always. No one called her Kate. But come on, like she was going to correct him.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Kate, Kathy, whatever.” She felt Judy’s gaze bore into her.

  She ignored it.

  “Leif,” he said, in a way that clearly said he knew she’d already known that. She couldn’t blame him for that arrogance; it would have been false modesty to act like he didn’t understand his position in the school.

  “Hey. So. What’s up?” She resisted moving her hair from one shoulder to the other. She was uncomfortably warm, especially now that he was talking to her, but it would just look like a weird, bad copy of a Wannabe Hot Girl Hair Flick if she did it.

  His dark eyes glanced to Judy briefly. “Could Kate and I get a moment?”

  Judy’s own eyes, plain brown, were narrowed at him in confusion. It was the same look she gave her math homework right before she said something like There’s no way there’s an answer to this. It’s impossible—then tackled it anyway. She didn’t actually say anything, though; she just shrugged and, giving her friend a glance that seemed unnecessarily judgmental, went over to a bench on the other side of the doors.

  “So what’s going on?” Kathy—suddenly Kate—asked Leif when he took Judy’s spot, then reached an arm along the back of the bench, which kinda-sorta resembled his actually putting his arm around her.

  “I know we don’t really know each other,” he said, “but we kind of do. You can’t be in the halls with someone for four years without feeling kind of like you know them.”

  She didn’t point out that they had also been in middle school together. “Right, totally.”

  “So I kind of feel like I know you.” His smile made the skin around his eyes crinkle. “Do you feel like you know me?”

  How she longed to be clever. To respond the way she would if she actually did know him. If she did, her answer would be I think you have to have a conversation at least once before really saying you know somebody. In retrospect, she’d wish she had said that. What had stopped her? That was what the hard-to-get girl character would say.

  Instead, she said, “Yeah, definitely.”

  “Cool. So do you think you’d want to maybe … hang out sometime?”

  He glanced behind her, and she felt vaguely aware that his friends were back there. But she dismissed that concern quickly, pushing it under the sea of her excitement.

  It might not have been at the top of her list to be one of the cool kids, but when the hottest guy in school—and the hottest guy you’d ever seen in real life—asks you out, you’re automatically one of them.

  “Um, sure,” she said, sitting up a little straighter and pulling the backpack in toward her not-entirely-flat stomach.

  “Cool.” He nodded. “You want to go to the movies or something? The new Batman movie is out.”

  Again, she gave the answer that opposed her natural inclination. “Yeah, I’ve been dying to see it!”

  Not true. Not true at all. But Leif.

  When she got home, the first thing she did was head for the kitchen, calling out for her mom. She knew she’d be there; she always was at this time of day.

  Sure enough, there she was, standing at the stove. Holding a wooden spoon and a handful of spinach, she turned around, looking a little alarmed at her daughter’s excited tone. “Kathy? Everything okay?”

  She dropped her backpack. “Uh, yeah. Guess who asked me out.”

  Her mother’s lips drew up in an anticipatory smile. “Who?”

  “Leif Tiesman.”

  Kathy wasn’t offended by the shock on her mother’s face. It was weird and unexpected.

  “Did he really? To do what?”

  “Movies.”

  “Wow!”

  “I know. It’s really out of the blue, but I mean, he’s dated all kinds of random girls. Remember I told you about Rosie with the braces?”

  “Well, it’s not a surprise he should ask you out, sweetie, you’re beautiful—but you don’t really know each other.”

  Kathy sat down on the stool. She was always amused and flattered when her mother—a wisp of a woman—told her she was be
autiful.

  “I know, but who cares?”

  “Not me!” Her mother laughed and went back to the stove. She set the wooden spoon in its rest and started ripping up the spinach to drop into the pot. “Want some veggie soup in a bit?”

  “Sure.”

  “What time is he picking you up?”

  “Oh, I’m just meeting him there.”

  Pause. “Hmm.” Another pause. “Not sure I like that. Not very gentlemanly.”

  Kathy rolled her eyes, sort of pleased to find herself in a cliché teenage scenario like this. “It’s fine, I’d rather meet him there anyway. Like you said, I don’t know him that well. Maybe he drives like a maniac, you don’t know!”

  This was actually something she thought to be true. He’d been the center of gossip once when he was suspected of being the driver who crashed into a garage door across the street from a party. His car looked fine, but he also had piles of money, so no one was ever quite sure if he simply repaired it before anyone saw.

  After tearing through the closet with her mom’s help, Kathy finally settled on a pair of black stretchy jeans, a navy V-neck, and a gray leather jacket from Nordstrom. Its zipper angles were very flattering. On the whole, when Kathy looked in the mirror, she felt good. She was no Abercrombie model, but she understood her body and knew how to make it look as good as it could. Maybe in freshman year she would have beaten herself up for how she looked, angry that the muscles she had developed had never replaced the fat around them.

  She was strong. She could run a 5k with good time. She was young, powerful, and capable. She was also healthy. Her skin glowed and her hair shone from her healthy diet. She had pearly white teeth, devoid of cavities. Her skin was buttery smooth. Everyone has a weak spot. Hers was her weight, and she had grown to accept that when nothing changed it. Some people are just bigger. Kathy was one of them.

  Her mom helped her pick out exactly the right makeup to wear: neutral tones on her eyes, pitch-black waterproof mascara, and only the slightest tinge of bronzer. They mutually agreed to skip lip gloss, repeating the conversation they’d had many times about how it was gross-looking even under the best of circumstances.

  Half an hour later, walking from her car to the theater, she saw Leif talking to a group of three girls. When he saw her, he gave her a nod and then gestured in her direction as he said something to them. For one mad second, she feared that he’d invited a bunch of girls out. She didn’t have time to think through why he would do such a thing, because by the time she got to him, they had walked away. She heard them whispering as they went. Who knew about what? It could have been mean comments about her, or it could have just as easily been adoring ones about him. Either way, she didn’t really care. Either way, she was the one out on a date with him.

  “Do you want some popcorn or soda or something?” he asked her as they passed the concession stand.

  “Oh, thanks, no, I’m good. I don’t really eat that stuff.” For a moment she regretted saying it—that’s the sort of thing that sounds insulting and judgmental to those who do. Her regret was quickly wiped away when she saw the look of surprise—and was that admiration?—flash over his face.

  Huh.

  He didn’t say much during the previews, which she supposed she couldn’t blame him for. Not everyone thought that any visual entertainment was improved by running commentary.

  But that wasn’t all. The previews, the movie—it was all watched in silence. No leaning over to make comments. No nudging of elbows or should we hold hands? tension. Just two people who didn’t know each other, watching a movie one of them didn’t want to see.

  When they left, he asked if she wanted to see “something cool.”

  “Sounds pretty ominous,” she said. “It’s not, like, your pet snake or anything, right?”

  He gave a little smirk she didn’t understand until later. “No. It’s definitely not my pet snake.”

  He took her hand then (his was surprisingly cold, maybe even a little clammy) and walked her down the side of the movie theater to the back. They passed a Dumpster that smelled like sticky soda, fake butter, and the worst of other garbage.

  They kept walking, out onto a grassy hill that overlooked a big man-made pond. Not a pretty one, just a big gross hole filled with water, condoms, and empty Natty Lite cans.

  He sat down on the grass, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. It wasn’t exactly a nice little patch of grass. But so far, this was the only interesting part of their date. The only thing that hadn’t felt like babysitting a ten-year-old boy she didn’t know. Or—she realized suddenly—like that much.

  “What did you want to show me?” she asked him.

  “Show you?” He looked bewildered.

  “You asked if I wanted to see something cool.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  What? This was crazy. “You did, you asked if I wanted to see something cool and I asked if it was your pet snake and you said no.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have a pet snake.”

  What did that even mean? Was he acknowledging he’d said it or calling her a liar by virtue of the fact that he didn’t have a pet snake? This was too weird.

  She was very glad she had her own mode of transportation to get back home.

  She needed to make a polite excuse—any excuse—that would get her home to her couch, where her mom would give her a lemonade with mint, so she could tell her every single detail of how much Leif Tiesman turned out to suck.

  As she opened her mouth to say she was tired, he grabbed her face—gently, but still definable as a grab—and kissed her.

  She let it happen. Old mental habits compelled her. Leif Tiesman Leif Tiesman—the drumbeat of his name in her head insisted that this was what she wanted.

  But it wasn’t. It wasn’t what she ever would have imagined. His tongue was forceful and too wet. His breath smelled like he hadn’t brushed his teeth since he and his friends had taquitos for lunch at 7-Eleven.

  No, she decided suddenly, just no. It didn’t matter what she’d ever thought before, or what a whole host of other idiot girls at school wanted, she didn’t want this.

  So she tried to pull away, but he pressed harder. It wouldn’t be until she went to college the next year that she fully understood what she had narrowly avoided that night. At the time, it just felt like a guy who wouldn’t get the hint. But that wasn’t all.

  She pushed him, her triceps working overtime, just like she’d trained them to do, and he toppled off of her, onto the grass.

  She ran.

  Weirdly, her main thought was that she couldn’t wait to take a shower.

  That thought disappeared when she heard his footsteps behind her, giving chase. She increased her pace, and he did, too. He was really following her? Picking up even more speed, she wondered wildly exactly what he planned to do if he caught her. He was an athlete, but so was she, whether he knew it or not. All she needed to do, she realized, was shake him off. She didn’t want to run to her car, parked in the dark lot—it had gotten emptier in the time they sat on the hill.

  No, all she needed to do was get into the public eye. He was a self-obsessed jerk. He wouldn’t want to look stupid or weird in front of people. He wouldn’t want that because he was stupid. It wouldn’t even occur to him that a guy physically chasing a girl down was cause for real concern. He just wouldn’t want to run into someone he knew.

  Particularly the three blondes.

  Just as she’d thought he would, he stopped as soon as she was visible in the light from the virtually empty theater. Out of breath, he gave a shake of his head and ran a hand through his hair before coughing a couple of times and sidling off to his silver Mustang convertible. He started the car, and his speakers blasted—Eminem—then he drove off.

  * * *

  SHE’D THOUGHT OF taking a day off the next day. She could go to the movies with her mom and see a movie she wanted to see—didn’t Kate Hudson have a new rom com out? But Kathy was determined to keep her chi
n held high the next day and go in.

  It didn’t matter, though. She knew the second she walked into the school that something was off. The looks clued her in. The whispers got her thinking. And Judy’s report had her fuming.

  Judy said she’d heard people talking about it outside before classes started. The field hockey team—domain of the Hot Girls—had already begun their summer practices, which took place at six in the morning. Apparently all the girls were out at the picnic tables—also the domain of Hot Girls—and talking. About Kathy.

  About Leif and Kathy and Leif’s Bucket List.

  She couldn’t contain her anger when she heard the extent of Judy’s story, which was really Leif’s lies. Somehow, she had to concentrate for three periods before lunch. This didn’t happen, but she burned through about fifty mental drafts in her head of what she’d say when she found him.

  It didn’t happen like in the movies. Not everyone watched. There was no background music to come to a stop. No one clapped or watched her walk away with new admiration.

  But she did what she needed to.

  She walked up to Leif, thinking how ridiculous and feminine he looked in his tank top, and stopped right in front of him. His smile faded. Clearly he thought she had no reason to be mad.

  “Did you tell everyone I gave you a blowjob?” she asked, wishing her voice were stronger.

  “I told like one person.” He shrugged, as if it wasn’t his fault and therefore it couldn’t matter. “News travels fast.”

  “I didn’t give you a blowjob, Leif.”

  He cocked his head at her, but his eyes showed that he was very aware of anyone and everyone who might be close enough to hear. “Well, it didn’t feel much like one, no. I didn’t say you gave me a good one.”

  His friends laughed. One dolt even put a fist to his mouth and said, “Ohhh shit!”

  Disgust built in her throat like vomit. “You know damn well that I didn’t give you one period.”